Insanity Ensues
by VampPhan
Summary: After the kiss, Erik wakes up to find himself on the set of the 2004 movie, playing himself. At the same time, Gerry is taken back to 1870 and is now the actual Opera Ghost. Someone must have divided by zero.
1. The Insanity Begins

**AN: This is entirely 2004 movie-verse and is meant to be humorous. The only people that are going to be out of character are the people who actually exist (Gerard, Emmy, etc). With that said, read on and enjoy the insanity.**

Everything seemed the same when the kiss was over, aside from the flooding of emotion through Erik's soul. All that was in his line of vision anyway. But when he heard an irritated man yell "CUT!", he found he was highly mistaken.

"Too enthusiastic again, Gerry," Christine sighed annoyedly. Erik stared at her in total confusion, then glanced around frantically, panicking like a claustrophobe in a small room as he saw more and more strange things around him.

"This was the ninth take on ONE kiss! You'd think you'd have it down by now…" a man with grey hair and a sallow face muttered. "Lunch break! We'll come back to this scene in an hour."

"What the hell is going on?" Erik demanded Christine—or at least, he thought she was Christine.

"Finally! I was getting sick of just standing here…my arms were going numb," a whiney man's voice complained from behind him, and Erik turned to see Raoul simply walking away from the ropes that had rendered him immobile only seconds before. Erik nearly stopped breathing at this point.

"What has gotten into you?" Christine asked, looking hurt.

"What has gotten into ME? What is wrong with you? How did these people get in there? What the hell are they talking about? What are these things?" he shouted, pointing to one of the odd, box-like structures that some woman was adjusting nearby.

Christine gaped at him in disbelief before dragging him by his wrist to a door—a door that had never existed in his lair. She opened it and pushed him outside—what? Outside? He seemed to be standing on a black floor with white stripes painted on it. Strange metal boxes with doors and wheels were parked here and there.

Christine turned his head with her hands to look at her.

"Gerry. I know you sometimes get really into the role—"

"Gerry? Why do you keep calling me that?"

Once again she stared in horror, now speechless.

"Answer me, Christine!"

"You need help…you know my name is Emmy," she muttered, closing her eyes in frustration and rubbing her temples. "Ok, I'll play along just so you'll stop. Your name is Gerard Butler, my name is Emmy Rossum. You are at a movie set, ACTING. Get it? You aren't really the person who you're playing. The year is 2004, and—"

"2004?" Erik cried. "Who even thinks that far ahead to make up such an elaborate joke? This is not funny, Christine! I know who I am! I am Erik!"

"This is my last warning. Calm down before we have to cancel this entire movie and I have to kill you for ruining it."

Erik desperately tried to slow his breathing. His head was starting to feel sweaty…

"Now. I'll ask for a longer break while you face reality. It might help to get out of those clothes and the prosthetic."

"Prosthetic…?" Erik dully whispered. Emmy pointed to his face with a blank expression.

Now he was really confused.

/

"Meh, I didn't really like that take. Can we do it again, Joel?" Gerry muttered, looking around. "Joel? Joel?"

All of the cameras were gone, as well as the director and everyone else. Gerry swallowed and turned about, but could only find Emmy and Patrick.

"Nice one, Andrew! Pretty damn quick to hide everyone in the twenty seconds it took to kiss her!" he played it off, desperately looking around for any sign of the playwright—or anyone.

"What's he doing?" Patrick asked Emmy. She only watched in as much confusion as Gerry searched for any clue that he was still in a set.

"Erik?" she bravely asked.

"He doesn't seem to be here either, if you're talking about the prop manager…", the actor said, feeling around for a hidden door.

"I'm talking about you, and you know my name!" Emmy—or whoever—explained, mindblown.

"Untie me and let's escape this madness while he's in this lunatic state!" Patrick (?) whispered to Emmy (?) thinking Gerry couldn't hear him.

"Hold on! I need you guys to explain this to me!" Gerry stopped them, flipping around. "Come on, this joke is getting old…"

"_What joke?" _the other two shouted in exasperation at the same time. Gerry stared and slowly sank to the floor, holding his knees to his chest like a mental patient.

"Oh God I really have gone crazy…" the actor whimpered, rocking back and forth a little. "Do your names happen to be Christine and Raoul?"

The other two nodded as if he had just asked if the world was round.

Gerry cursed under his breath and then looked up, eyeing Raoul with distaste.

"You aren't going to help me, so scram," he ordered, pointing to the exit.

"But—but…" Christine stammered, even more shocked.

"That was the deal right? Your freedom in exchange for his life or something like that. Untie him and show him out."

She started undoing the ropes.

_Okay…where's that lever thing….ah! _he thought, finding the iron bar that raised the door. He cracked his knuckles and yanked it down.

"Wait, wait, wait, wait!" Raoul shrieked, his feet kicking in the air—yes, the air—and looking up in fear at the portcullis disappearing into the stone ceiling. Christine hadn't finished untying him and he was raising with the barred door. Gerry reluctantly lowered the lever again and let Christine finish.

_I must be getting used to that prosthetic…I can't feel it at all! Wait a minute…_

/

"It's gone. It's _gone. _IT'S GONE!"

Erik threw back his now perfectly normal head in maniacal laughter. The woman who had taken off the deformity swiftly hurried out the door, obviously freaked out by the reaction.

"Yes! Oh, this nightmare is turning into a most wonderful dream, is it not, Christine?"

"Emmy," the actress sighed, rolling her eyes. "I do wonder where your accent went…though you still sound different."

"Accent? I never had one," Erik said, ceasing his insane laughter.

"If you're a fictional character from France, then why are you speaking English?"

Erik's eyes widened. "I am?"

There was a really awkward pause.

"You say we are actors playing out the story of my life…"

"Yes, but you—I mean, the Phantom never existed. A man wrote a book about you and Andrew Lloyd Webber adapted it into a musical. This is the movie version."

"What is a movie?"

Emmy sighed. "You know how you can take a photograph of someone? We do that only with movement. So you can see a scene exactly as it played out, at any point in time. A moving picture. We put these together and it's like watching a play, only you can view it anywhere."

He thought a moment. "Very advanced…very strange…Assuming this is all reality, and that there really is some sort of play in the future written about my life, since I have this actor's face, I now have his life instead of my own. Not just his life, but his body. So perhaps the body is accustomed to speaking a certain language, so I do so naturally since I am now him. But aside from the deformity, he and I are identical, as are you and Christine, and Raoul and his actor. This can't be a simple time travel phenomenon, or else we all would look very different and this play—ahem, movie, would be based on a true story. But you say I am fictional. Perhaps it has something to do with different dimensions, one in which I exist and you never do, and another where I never existed but you do."

Emmy blinked. "You really are Erik, aren't you?"

"That's what I've been trying to say this entire time, Christ—excuse me, Emmy," Erik said.

"So that means…Gerry has your life now. Oh God."


	2. Awkward Adjustments

"Oh no. No,no,no,nooo…."

Gerry was still distraught after he had convinced Raoul to leave. The barred door was closed as well as a solid iron door over that. Christine was trying her best to calm him down and understand him.

"Can you explain again? I'm afraid I could not understand you," she gently said, but was obviously afraid and probably would not believe anything he said.

"I said…I was acting in a movie in the year 2004, and—"

"What is a movie?"

He swallowed and struggled to explain, "It's like a play…um…a picture that moves—"

"How fascinating! How does it work?"

He slapped his palm to his forehead. "It's complicated. I don't even know. Anyway, the movie is about everything that has happened since your manager left and you became a star. And one scene where you were little and another where Erik was in a fair. And later after you had died…"

"A play of the future? Written about my life?" Christine gasped, putting her hand up to her lips. "But how?"

"I don't know either, the story isn't supposed to be based on a true story! In my world, you and Erik and Raoul never existed!" Gerry exclaimed. Christine was having trouble comprehending this.

"But we do exist…"

"I see that, I know. As I was saying, I was just shooting a scene—well, rehearsing, if you will—and it was the part where you kissed Erik to save Raoul, and when I opened my eyes, I was here!"

Christine's eyes widened. "So Erik must be…"

"In the future. Well, my present. I have no idea how it happened, or why, but I have to get back. I can't be stuck in the bloody 19th century, let alone in the life of a deformed psycho with a mob out to kill me…I mean, this is impossible! Things like this don't happen! I have to be dreaming, a camera must have blown up and a piece hit me in the head and now I'm imagining all of this…" Gerry nodded, but caught his reflection in a nearby mirror and felt the ruined side of his face. "I hated this thing even when I could take it off at the end of the day…"

"Erik wasn't exactly fond of it either," Christine said, rolling her eyes. She then looked at Gerry. "You sound odd…where are you from?"

"Scotland. Wait…why are you speaking English?"

"I'm not. I don't even know how to."

"But I can understand you, and I sure as hell don't know French," Gerry insisted, then suddenly yawned. "And why am I tired? It was only noon when I was filming…"

"Because it's very late at night here, I suppose. And now you're in this world, in Erik's body," Christine explained, still not sure if she believed this. "Why don't you get some rest? Maybe you'll wake up and be your own self again."

"Yes…maybe…" Gerry nodded, his eye still twitching a little as he got up. They only realized how difficult this would be when they headed towards the same swan bed.

"Erm…is there another bed?" he asked unsurely. Christine shook her head, regretting that she was so exhausted. "I could just…"

"I'll just stay on my side and you stay on your side, how's that?"

/

"I look absolutely absurd."

"You look nice."

"Ridiculous."

"Nice."

"Horrid."

"Handsome."

Erik and Emmy were bickering over the simple jeans and graphic t-shirt she had picked out for him. Earlier, Emmy had convinced Schumacher to cancel the entire day's plans, saying that Gerry was violently ill and that they were early on shooting anyway.

"What kind of trousers are blue and of this material?" Erik barked, flabbergasted at the modern clothing.

"They're called jeans."

"I don't care what they're called! I demand something else! Something respectable, fitting, and black!" he commanded.

"Do you want fries with that…?" Emmy muttered dully as Erik stormed into the separate room to change. His reply was a rather loud growl and clothes being thrown at her.

"Okay, okay, God, I'll get some more! Don't be such a diva!"

Emmy searched through Gerry's acting trailer for anything black. Alas, she found a black t-shirt and dark dress pants. She knocked on the door where Erik was. The door creaked open just enough for a hand to dart out, snatch the clothes, and jerk them back in.

Emmy heard a lot of shuffling and things being knocked over before Erik came out, actually looking pleased.

"Now, I am hungry. Strange, because I never am. I'm sure you're going to show me all the strange foods of your time."

/

"Oh my…well, I see you…ahem, got what you wanted, Erik."

Gerry startled awake with a snort, once again terrified. First, Miranda Richardson—or Madame Giry, rather—was standing at the foot of the bed with a judging expression. Secondly, he was IN the swan bed, AND in a rather awkward position with Christine.

The said lady groaned and rolled over, realized where she was, then yelped, pushing Gerry away. Both were considerably flustered.

Madame Giry looked at both of them, obviously confused.

"How the bloody hell did you get in?" Gerry asked, exasperated.

"Through the mirror, where else?" she replied, even more puzzled.

"But the entrance was blocked—" Christine piped up before being cut off.

"Not your mirror, the one over there," Antoinette Giry sighed, pointing to the right. "Now, I suppose you are happily married? I should hope so, seeing as you are together in this way…"

Christine was about to explain but Gerry nudged her warningly under the covers.

"Of course we are…" he smoothly lied, with the most Erik-like smirk he could muster.

"Well now…I am very happy for both of you then.." Giry said slowly. "But I don't understand. The last time I saw you, you had kidnapped her after she betrayed you in front of a large audience, and—"

"Well—" Christine once again tried and failed at speaking. She was getting tired of being interrupted.

"I apologized for my actions, as did she, and we forgave each other. I convinced her there was nothing to be afraid of," Gerry said quickly. "Now can you please leave my wife and I in peace?"

"Of course," the Madame stammered, backing away hesitantly. "I was just making sure you had not done something you would regret, Erik."

He scoffed and gestured towards Christine. "Oh no…why would I regret something as wonderful as this?"

"I suppose you would not…well then, goodbye."

As soon as they could not hear the lady's footsteps any longer, Christine turned to Gerry.

"I must say, you are a good actor."

"Tis my job," he grinned. There was a pause.

"I thought you said if I stayed on my side of the bed, you'd stay on yours…"

/

Emmy had spent the past half hour watching Erik scarf down food, trying every soft drink and fast food meal he could cram into his mouth.

"When was the last time you ate?" she eventually shrieked after Erik had downed his third burger (this one was with bacon). He turned around and shrugged, slurping on a strawberry smoothie. He licked his lips.

"I don't recall. Like I said, I never ate much then…your Gerry must have had the appetite of an elephant. No matter how much I eat, I'm never full. But how glorious and tasteful these foods are!" he declared, practically diving into a large pack of fries and wolfing them down.

The actress groaned and leaned back in her chair. After a second, she glanced back at him. "Seriously, you should stop. You're going to either throw up or your stomach will explode!"

"Nonsense, my dear. I can assure you my stomach will certainly not burst. I won't even v—," he started to say before a look of horror crossed his face and he keeled over. Emmy moved out of the way in time before grimacing in disgust.  
"I told you so…oh God, I can see a whole fry in there."


	3. Stupidity of Society

**AN: Someone was concerned about me not keeping Gerry in character because they were under the impression that he had a drug problem. Understandable, since most actors are drug users, and there were rumors that Gerry was on drugs recently—which was actually when he noticed he was too dependent on pain medication after a surfing accident, so he chose to go to rehab for that. He did, in fact, have an alcohol problem during his life, but this was before he was ever in any big films such as Phantom. He was a smoker during 2004 and 2005 (but quit after the movie **_**P.S I Love You**_**). As for his attitude, he's known to be a rather friendly, nice person to fans and coworkers alike, and he's never had any personal dramas in the media, such as too much partying, rage fits, affairs, etc. Yes, I think he's an attractive person, but if he were the Charlie Sheen type of actor, I'd be the first to mock him for it. Thank you. **

CHAPTER 3

When Christine had gotten dressed, she walked out into the cavern to find Gerry masked and looking around for something—under papers, in drawers, behind blindfolded statues and covered mirrors, everywhere.

"What are you looking for?" she asked quietly, her voice echoing off the damp stone walls.

"A cigarette."

"A what?"

"Oh. I guess they weren't invented until later…I'm guessing Erik didn't smoke anyway," he muttered annoyedly.

"No, he didn't. He said he didn't want to depend on anything except music—not alcohol, nor cigars, nor food, nor people. Except his sanity seemed to depend entirely on me…"

"Then I shouldn't actually need the nicotine, if Erik's body wasn't addicted to it. I guess it's just a mental habit or something…" he thought aloud, rubbing his neck. "How old was he, by the way?"

"He never told me."

"Then how old are you?"

"I turn 17 in April."

"The same as Emmy…then Erik's the same age as me. 34," Gerry mused. "A little awkward for a relationship, don't you think?"

"Not at all. Plenty of girls my age marry men twice their age," Christine said matter-of-factly. "Why? Is this not the custom in your time?"

"Girls your age aren't even thinking about marrying in my time, let alone to guys that old."

"Why?"

"Because most men don't want to go to jail," Gerry said curtly.

"Jail?"

"Yes, jail! For banging a minor!"

Christine blinked. "Banging?"

Gerry groaned and shook his head. "Nevermind…"

The girl crossed her arms and looked towards the wall trapping her in the cave.

"Well, since you aren't Erik and you aren't obsessed with me, can I leave?"

He chuckled. "Oh you poor thing…of course you can't."

Her jaw dropped and she snapped, "Why?"

"Because, I'm not going to survive in this century without someone to help me. Someone to keep ME sane," he sighed. She thought a moment then nodded, seeing his point.

"Well, I should probably check up above for you, to see how much damage Erik caused and how much they want to kill him—well, you."

"Ah, that's right, we were going to film that chandelier part last…" Gerry said, turning to her. "Can I trust you to come back?"

"If at all possible, I will. People might take me away for questioning, and Raoul will want to see me."

Gerry frowned. "Yeah, that won't work. You can't be seen. You won't be able to come back. And if you can't be seen either, then I might as well go with you."

He started to walk towards the lever to open the doors, but Christine rushed to stop him.

"The mob was outside that way looking for you! They may be waiting out there as we speak."

"Why didn't they just blow up the door then?"

"Because they know I'm inside," Christine sighed.

"Ah. Right. This way then!" Gerry said, loping up the stone steps to the line of covered mirrors, finding the last one and tossing away the red velvet drape.

"Why did I have to smash this to bits if Miranda—Madame Giry, I mean…dammit, I keep mixing everyone up…anyway, how did she come through it so quietly?"

"Maybe there's a switch on the side or something," Christine suggested. They both started feeling the sides of the mirror, but found nothing. Gerry groaned and stepped back. As he did, he stumbled forward and caught himself against the glass, accidentally pushing it sideways. It moved quite effortlessly, like a sliding glass door.

"Well…that was anticlimactic," he muttered, peering into the dark tunnel. He was about to ask Christine for a light of some sort, but she appeared with a lit candelabra in hand. Gerry glanced back at the tunnel unsurely.

"I guess 'ladies first' doesn't apply in this situation."

/

"What are these?" Erik inquired curiously, lifting pink earphones from Emmy's bag. She quickly took them from him and revealed her white iPod.

"Those are earphones to my iPod. It's a pretty new technology. You put those in your ears and then press buttons in this part to listen to music."

"Music…?"

Erik looked like a kid in a candy store. Smiling at his excitement, Emmy started untangling the bubblegum colored earphones.

"Yeah. I can put up to 400 songs on here."

At first he looked like he didn't believe her one bit, but then shrugged. "I don't see how any of this is possible, but if a button can make a moving image appear behind glass on what you call a TV, I suppose buttons can make music too."

"Would you like to listen?" Emmy offered politely.

"Oh yes! I would love to hear how music has evolved over 233 years!" Erik said. "Who is the most famous composer of this era?"

"Um…we don't really have composers anymore. I mean, people write songs but it's the singer who's popular. Or a band—a group of people who all play different instruments."

"What, like an orchestra? Nevermind, let me listen already," he said, putting in the earphones (a funny sight) and waiting for Emmy to pick a song. Finally, she settled on 'Let it Be' by The Beatles.

"This is actually from thirty years ago, but people copy their style," she explained before hitting 'Play'. Erik was amazed at the fact that music was coming from such an indirect force into his ears, and the music was far from terrible.

"It's strange to me, but I can see the appeal. The singer needs to project a little more."

Emmy chuckled. "If you want projection, I think you'll like this…"

She switched to a screamo song and Erik jumped in his seat.

"Gah! This is wretched!" he spat. She turned the volume down.

"It's a new style. The screaming represents torment or pain, to show the emotion of the song."

"Well, it's certainly agony to listen to…"

She rolled her eyes and changed it to an electronic pop song with no lyrics. Erik's eyes slanted as he tried to think of how to describe it.

"It sounds like…musical morse code."

Emmy burst into a fit of giggles, quite enjoying the 19th century man's reactions. "I guess you could say that."

Erik spent over an hour flipping through songs, after Emmy showed him how to operate the iPod (he could only turn the volume up and down, and go to the next song). He concluded the following:

Metal/Hard Rock: Sometimes terrible, other times powerful, like modern Don Juan.

50's-60's: charming…for a children's choir.

70's: Too slow and free flowing, but beautifully complex lyrics.

Pop: Fascinating background. Horrid vocals and immature lyrics, however.

Rap: HORRIBLE. WHOEVER INVENTED IT MUST BE PUNJABBED.

Country: The fiddles are familiarly pleasant, but the vocals are awful and lyrics pathetic.

"So there is no genre you totally like?" Emmy asked, a bit insulted.

"No. Is there any genre YOU totally like?" he shot back. "You picked all of these songs, correct? This is your ipatch, right?"

"iPod, Erik," Emmy laughed. "Yes, it's mine."

"Well, you have a wide variety of genres because you like some songs of different types. Otherwise, all your music would sound the same," he pointed out. She shrugged.

"Yeah, I guess you're right."

He put the iPod on the table of the acting trailer they were in and stood up.

"Speaking of music…do you sound like Christine as well as look like her?"

She looked away shyly. "I sure hope so. I am playing her role."

"Sing."

_Just like the character…of course he is, you idiot, he IS the character, _she thought, feeling stupid. It was still hard to believe this. Clearing her throat, she started singing the first thing that came to her.

"_You have brought me, to that moment when words run dry…to that moment when speech disappears into silence, silence…"_

Erik's professional, critiquing demeanor shattered as soon as he heard that familiarly beautiful voice. As she continued singing, he stepped closer as if drawn to the sound. She ended before the chorus and looked down at her hands, twisting them together absentmindedly.

"Just like her. You must be her," Erik said quietly. Looking up, Emmy defended herself.

"Maybe I look and sound like her, but I can't have her soul. Once you get to know me, you'll see that," she assured him. "Unless you never really knew her either."

Erik tensed up angrily. "Of course I knew her, I loved her with every fibre of my being!"

The teenager crossed her arms, challenging him. "Really? Then what was her favorite color?"

He scoffed. "I don't see how that's even relevant…"

"If you knew her so well, you'd know," Emmy said, looking amused. "What was her favorite food, then?"

"She ate whatever they served the ballet girls in the kitchen and went out a lot when she became Prima Donna, so…I don't know."

"Did you ever discuss things aside from music, like politics, religion, or what she wanted to do with her life—aside from singing?"

He paused. "Well…I know she's Catholic."

"Wasn't every French person Catholic back then?"

Narrowing his eyes, he quickly said, "Not me."

Emmy shook her head and sighed. "You fell in love with Christine's looks and voice, not who she is."

"No, she was delicate and fragile, and I needed to protect her. Then I built her up to be something great."

"Tell me this. If she couldn't sing, would you have even cared about her?" Emmy asked. For a long time, Erik was silent.

"It's what drew me to her. Her voice. I wouldn't have known her without it. So to me, it was a crucial part of my love for her."

Nodding, the actress stretched her arms behind her and strode towards the door of the trailer.

"If you ever get back home, take some time getting to know the girl you kill for. She might learn to love you back that way."

**AN: So this was a little more serious, and the next chapter will be too. But don't worry, I'll still have plenty of comedy in there. It's kind of hard not to with a body-swap story :P Thanks for your reviews! **


	4. Continuing Exploration

CHAPTER 4

Only a few feet down the tunnel was a door with small bars at eye level in the wood. Gerry and Christine cautiously opened it, only to be disappointed when it only led to more tunnel.

"Do you have any idea where this goes?" Gerry asked Christine, deciding to go left.

"Of course not. I've only been to Erik's home once before, and never here."

Sighing, the actor kept walking. Their feet splashed in little pools of water, and every so often, Christine's soft gasp echoed down into the darkness when she heard the squeak of a rat. Finally, Gerry noticed the light from the candelabra illuminated a door. He was about to open it when he saw there was a door beside that one, and one behind him, and on and on they went across the walls of the dank corridor, all the way forward into the depths and all the way back from whence they came.

"Which one do we go through?" he asked, even though he knew she couldn't have an answer.

"He has traps set around the lair. We should be careful," he continued. Christine looked confused.

"How do you know this?"

"Because we just filmed the scene where Patrick—Raoul—gets caught in a water trap, and we're going to do one later with a mirror trap. So far everything that happens in the movie is true here."

"Then shouldn't you know about this tunnel?" Christine questioned suspiciously. He rolled his eyes.

"This part was never in it. I smash open the mirror and disappear after I let you and Raoul go."

"Erik was going to let me go?" Christine whispered in disbelief. Gerry looked at her with a small amount of empathy.

"Yeah. He wanted you to be happy so he let you go with your fiancé. Even after all he did to get you. The Angel of Music trick, tormenting Carlotta, the murder, Don Juan, the chandelier…Piangi was part of the plan too, I guess, but personally, I would have just knocked him out or thrown him in a closet…"

"He killed Piangi?" Christine gasped. Blinking, Gerry stared at her annoyedly.

"You really don't know much about Erik, do you?"

The young woman exhaled sadly and turned away, inspecting the door closest to her.

"No, I suppose not. No one really knows anything about him, aside from Madame Giry, but she won't tell anyone a thing, so we just rely on rumors…it's kind of silly, but ghost stories pass the time-Ah! I found something, Gerry! Look here!"

Rushing to her, Gerry followed the invisible line from where her finger was pointing to the floor. Etched into the stone was a crude drawing of a stick person with a spike driven through its body. Simultaneously shifting away from the door, the two looked at each other incredulously. Christine swallowed.

"Let's not go in there."

"Hold on…it could be just a trick to scare intruders away," Gerry pointed out, pushing open the door quickly then jumping back with the candelabra held in front of him and Christine, as if some giant hairy beast would leap out at them. But he could see nothing in the room but blackness, so he stepped forward. The candles illuminated a damp floor with one stone sunken in, about where someone would step if they entered the room. Gerry took another step forward, and almost jumped out of his skin when his eyes gazed upon the body of the person who stepped on that stone. A huge metal spike protruded from the back of the corpse, apparently coming from the opposite side of the room.

"H-holy…SHIT!"

Gerry stumbled back, heart pounding out of his chest as he tried to catch his breath and senses. Christine clapped a hand over her mouth to prevent a scream while she slammed the door shut with her free hand. Gerry started shaking his head spastically.

"I can't do this, ok, this is too damn crazy…I want to get back, I want to go home, I want to get out of here…."

"Get a hold of yourself, you're a grown man!" Christine snapped, though still very shaky herself.

"Yeah, just some guy who got impaled by a guy who's supposed to be fictional, that's not shocking at all!"

Taking a deep breath, Christine rationalized the situation. "Erik didn't murder him himself, he had to set up traps to keep out people who potentially wanted to hurt or kill him. The man went at his own risk."

"…are you insane?"  
"Shh! We have to keep calm. We don't even know that man. Now let's not open anymore doors unless the drawing looks promising."

She led the way down the dark stone hallway, and as they checked more and more drawings of stick people drowning, hanging, falling into a pit, etc, Gerry noticed Christine was humming to herself.

More disturbed than before, he turned back to the floor.

_Who's more crazy, the Phantom or Christine? _

_/_

"Ok, tomorrow we're going to be filming the final lair scene again. In your, uh…dimension, is it normal to…sing outside of opera? Like instead of casually talking?" Emmy asked awkwardly, fiddling with a script.

"Our operas have musical dialogue…"

"No, I mean, do YOU sing? Like instead of telling Christine to choose, you sing it?"

Erik raised an eyebrow and looked at Emmy as if she had lobsters crawling out of her hair. "Why on earth would I do such an absurd thing?"

Emmy sighed. "Because your story is now the 'opera' itself. We call it a musical though, since the songs aren't technically opera music. Characters mostly sing instead of speaking."

"So playing the role of myself won't be so easy then…I have to learn the words to my life," Erik mused, clearly not thrilled. "And sing to strange people from the future."

"Oh no, we recorded the songs already. You just have to mouth the words and act," Emmy assured him. It didn't work to calm his nerves.

"You recorded the music…?"

"Yeah, we can record sound here, that's how you can hear it on my iPod. So we'll listen to the songs and lip sync. When it is pre-recorded in a sound studio rather than a set, it has a clearer, more powerful sound. And a higher chance that we'll play the part better if we don't have to focus on singing at the same time."

"So people basically have more technology but are less talented," Erik scoffed, taking the script from her and reading over the final scene. "It is true that we said all of this, but I'm rather sure that we didn't rhyme. It was a very intense moment…"

"We know. That's what we're trying to portray. Here, listen to the music and read over the lyrics until you know it," Emmy said, finding the burned CD among the stack of papers on the recording studio desk. She adjusted the volume and found the track, and when Erik was ready, she let it play.

_How wonderful it is that music can make such an ugly scene beautiful, _he thought, reading along and still trying to wrap his brain around the fact that Andrew Lloyd Webber and Charles Hart could portray his every thought through music when they never knew the man even existed. Slowly, he started to learn the words to his life.

"Tomorrow when you come in, a makeup artist is going to take a pretty long time putting on the prosthetic…" Emmy reminded him.

"You mean that horrible mass of flesh that I was so happy to be rid of?"

"Yeah. You get to take it off at the end of the day and everyone knows it's fake, so no one will treat you badly or anything. Actually, everyone kind of loves you here," she said. "And remember that all of the actors are in fact, ACTORS. So don't get too into the role and try to kill Patrick."

"He's playing the fop, correct?" Erik asked irritably.

"Yes. But you're in luck because we've already done the majority of my romantic scenes with him. Tomorrow, you get your fantasy of Christine kissing you—probably multiple times until the director likes it. Then, you let her go."

"But it's you, not her," Erik reminded her sarcastically, imitating what she said before. Emmy just shrugged.

"You might get excited."

"How DO you people know that I end up letting her go anyway? It's very unlike myself. I was only barely thinking of it in the back of my mind before I was transported here," Erik said, looking both annoyed and confused.

"I have no clue. Ask Andrew. Wait—don't do that. He'll think you're crazy."

"Any more advise, Mam'selle Rossum?"

"Actually, yes," she said, pointing to a camera placed in the recording studio. "Don't look at those when acting. No matter what."

"Why? Will they burn my eyes?" Erik asked seriously. Emmy held back a laugh and ended up snorting. She tried to pretend that didn't just happen.

"No, it'll just look stupid if an experienced actor is looking at cameras that have been there the entire time," she said. "It would be like watching a play where the actors keep looking at you in the audience rather than the other actors, or whatever they need to look at."  
"Oh, I see…the cameras of today record moving pictures!"

Emmy resisted the urge to start a slow clap for him. Looking over him, she narrowed her eyes. "You need to be Gerry-fied…can you do a Scottish accent?"

Erik just gave her a dull look. "Do I appear as if I know how to do that?"

"Okay, you can say you're trying to get rid of it…for the role. Oh, and Gerry is really friendly, so if someone talks to you, act that way—"

Erik cringed as if in pain and he groaned a little.

"What's wrong?" Emmy asked, concerned.

"What is this sick feeling coming from…it's unlike anything I've felt before," he hissed. He clenched his fists and released them over and over.

"What feeling?"

"It's jittery, and…" he trailed off before describing it with a shudder and a sound of disgust. "It's been gradually increasing all day. I thought it was just from the shock earlier."

It took Emmy a moment before she gasped.

"I know what that is! Gerry smokes. His body is craving nicotine and you're in his body."

"Ugh!" Erik groaned. "Firmin and the elder patrons of the opera always have those blasted pipes in their mouths too. It smells awful."

"Well, Gerry smoked cigarettes, but it's basically the same as pipes, I guess. I don't know where he has them stashed though.." she said regretfully.

"Don't trouble yourself, I shall get over it in time."

"But Erik—"

"I am not taking back a nasty habit like that if I ever get back to Paris. Smoking does get rather expensive over time."

"Well, that and it kills you," Emmy muttered.

"It does? I knew it!"

"But it's not so easy to just 'get over' smoking. Withdrawal is a slow process and it might interfere with your acting, and you might be too irritable to deal with," she said. After a second, she looked hopeful. "We can go pick up some nicotine patches for you. Or gum!"

"Excuse me?"

"They help people quit by gradually decreasing their nicotine intake," she explained quickly, digging in her pocket to retrieve her car keys. "Come on."

"Where are we going?" Erik whined.

"My car."

"Car…?  
"Explaining everything to you is getting really boring, you know."

"Well excuse me for not being born in the bloody 21st century!"

"You would be a toddler if that were the case."

"Silence, clone of Christine!"


	5. Frenemies?

Chapter 5

"Do you know why there's even rooms like this down here? I mean, Erik couldn't have built this whole damn tunnel along with every trap in it," Gerry said with exasperated curiosity. Passing by yet another drawing of a person hanging, Christine explained.

"This opera was used for prisoners during the Paris Commune after the Prussian war. I suppose they built these cells down below for what they saw as the most dangerous or likely to escape criminals."

"This many?"

"I honestly cannot say for certain."

Gerry frowned. "But wait…the Prussian war would be going on now, in 1871. But it's not."

"No…the Prussian war happened about fifteen years ago."

"So even basic history is different in our worlds….or Joel just set the movie in the wrong time period," he sighed. "Idiot."

"Oh, here's something that looks like it _doesn't_ mean agonizing death," Gerry said after a few minutes more of searching. Christine rushed over, her skirts swishing around her legs.

"What is that?" he asked her. There were small circles lined up in rows with some sort of structure drawn above the circles. Christine pondered for a few seconds before her face showed realization.

"It's the chandelier!"

Without waiting for her to give him the say-so, Gerry flung open the door. All he saw was a narrow, dank stone staircase, spiraling up into darkness.

"That must be five floors or more," Christine said, her voice echoing off the slimy walls.

"Then we'd better get started."

After they climbed what had been obviously a lot more than five floors, Gerry had to stop, panting and leaning against the wall, despite all of the greenish mold clinging to the stone.

"This….has to be a trap itself…making you climb yourself to death…"

"What? I am only slightly out of breath and I am much smaller than you!"

"Yeah, well I come from a time period where everyone is fat and lazy," Gerry snorted, mocking himself by patting his belly. Christine looked at him strangely.

"You look very strong though."

"That's because I have to work out—exercise, I mean—for a lot of roles. The more attractive you are, the more likely you are to get the part."

"That holds true here at the opera. Except Carlotta is no great beauty in my opinion."

"Ha…Minnie Driver is a lot prettier when she's not in costume...like her real singing voice," Gerry said, yet again attempting to brave the rest of the stairs. Christine slowed herself to his pace patiently.

"Minnie Driver plays Carlotta, I assume?"

"Yeah. You get to hear her real voice at the end of the movie, and she's actually pretty good. During the rest of it, they have an actual belle canto opera singer to sing her parts and be all obnoxious," he explained, stopping again to look overhead. "I don't see the end anywhere."

"It has to end, the stairs can't go on forever into the sky," Christine assured him. Just then, she noticed the door. "There it is! Come on, Gerry."

He whined in protest as she grabbed his hand and ran up the rest of the steps, dragging him along with her. He was just about to slip on one when they reached what Christine found—not just any door, but a trap door. Cautiously, she climbed up to the door, pushed it open and looked around. It appeared to be a large closet, filled with decorations, tools, and dusty costumes and sets that appeared to have never been used, with two doors on opposite walls. She looked down to wave Gerry to come up with her, but smacked him instead when she saw that he was looking up her skirt with a grin that reached ear to ear.

"You'd better be grateful that you only saw pantaloons or else you would be falling all the way back down those stairs," she snapped, but had a hint of a smile. He raised his hands up in defense and followed her into the closet. Once they stood up in the room, Christine put the rug back over the trap door and Gerry headed to the closest door. Once opened, a cool blast shocked them both.

"It's the rooftop," he said, squinting in the sunlight as he stepped out into it. It was strange to see it in the daytime with no snow. "Would have been cool to see how Erik got up here during 'All I Ask of You'."

"During what?"

"The song you and Raoul sing in the movie when you're up here. All lovey-dovey and stuff."

"Oh…well, um…this door is probably the one we're looking for."

Gerry took one last look at the sunny Parisian view, sighed, and went back into the closet, closing the door behind him. Christine had left the other door open, already inside the other room, which was only slightly bigger. The walls were made of cheap looking boards, with many cracks of light showing through. One wall slanted from the floor at a gradual angle to the low ceiling, as if on the other side was a dome, and in the corner there was a dark, barely noticeable but good sized gap, big enough for a man to fit through. More obvious was the octagonal glass in the middle of the slanted wall.

"So if he's not watching from Box Five he can watch from here…" Christine said quietly, looking through the glass to the stage, where people scurried around, trying to repair the damage from the fallen chandelier. "Not an excellent view though."

"I remember this place. I was only in here for a couple of shots," Gerry mused, looking at the undone chains and ropes wrapped around two cranks. "Once to watch 'Il Muto' and again I came through that gap and undid these chains before 'Don Juan' to weaken the chandelier. Though I still don't understand how I could just cut one rope and make it fall, or even why a rope holding up a two ton chandelier was on the stage anyway."

"I suppose Erik connected that rope to some sort of trigger that released whatever was actually holding it."

"Or that."

As they explored, they found that there was yet another door that lead down a dark corridor to the catwalks and flies above the stage. As quietly as possible, Gerry lead Christine to a secluded spot where they could hear what the stagehands were saying without being seen by them as they wandered across the bridge where Buquet was killed.

"Let's listen to see what exactly they suspect or what they're planning to do," he suggested. "I want to know ahead of time when and where I'm going to be murdered by an angry mob."

/

Emmy shook her head in defeat after Erik yet again failed to act like friendly, outgoing Gerry. This time, Patrick had asked him about the nicotine patch on his arm and he gave the man a silent death glare until Emmy elbowed him, at which point he gave a forced reply.

"I'm trying to quit."

"Oh…well good for you…" the other man said hesitantly, obviously freaked out by Erik's reaction to him. Emmy thought quickly.

"He's getting into character for the final lair scene. You know, hating you and everything."

"Ah…you're very good at it, I'll give you that," he said with an awkward laugh. "If you'll excuse me, I have to get into costume."

Once Patrick had walked away, Emmy turned to Erik, who was still shooting imagined daggers at Patrick's back with his eyes.

"For once, I'm glad Gerry smoked and had withdrawals, or else you'd never get away with your horrible attitude."

"It's not even the craving that's bothering me. It's _this _damn thing," Erik snapped, pointing violently at his face, which had been fitted with the prosthetic after hours of sitting in a chair with strangers poking at him. "I already had to endure years of it and now I have the chance to be normal but I have to put it back on and pretend to be my old, hideous self again? I swear, Emmy, God hates me."

"On set, now!" Joel barked, passing through the people wandering around and waving them on, especially at Erik and Emmy. "Come on!"

The young actress pushed Erik towards the set and directed him towards his place in the middle of the artificial lake, struggling to keep him from tripping off the raised underwater walkway and falling into the deep part (where the candelabras raised up in 'Music of the Night').

Quietly, she said, "I'm pretty sure we're starting from the kiss…"

"We're starting from Raoul's entrance," Joel announced. "It was a little weak yesterday—day before yesterday, I mean." He looked at Erik weirdly. "Gerry, Emmy, the hell are you doing? Get out of the water! Now your costumes are wet already!"

"Sorry, I thought we were starting from somewhere else," Emmy apologized, intimidated.

"Well maybe you should wait until the director tells you where to start!" Joel huffed. "Know what, it doesn't matter. We already made a wardrobe mistake with Emmy's stockings, we didn't notice it until much later, I'm sure no one else will notice this. Just zoom in on their face and torso instead."

"But we already planned them out—" protested a cameraman, but was quickly cut off by Joel.

"Just zoom in and follow him until he's already in the water, then proceed as normal! Ok, everyone on the same page? Let's get started."

Erik's nervousness level went sky high after a guy walked in front of the camera with a square, painted board and snapped an attached rectangular board on top of it. After the loud click, the prerecording of the lines Erik was supposed to lip sync to started to blare through speakers, starting with 'Monsieur I bid you welcome'. Why was that playing? Everyone was silent and staring at him strangely. Emmy told him that he was supposed to begin with his lines once someone said "action", but no one said anything. Why were they staring at him then?

"Gerry. Please tell me you remember your lines," Joel groaned, running a hand through his grey hair tiredly. Quickly, Erik nodded, trying to channel the personality of the body he was in.  
"Yes, I memorized them, I just…forgot momentarily," he said. He turned back to his starting place, facing Emmy. Now he could assume that he was supposed to begin whenever someone clacked that board.

"Ok, take two."

Clack.

Erik took a breath and turned to face Patrick, and began his lipsyncing as instructed.

"_Monsieur, I bid you welcome…"_

It took a few seconds of feeling completely and totally stupid before he could begin to feel hatred surge through him as if he was back in the bitter, stressed moment with Raoul and Christine, even as no sound was coming from his mouth. He remembered every detail of emotion from that night, and it came naturally to him.

Clack.

He snapped back to reality. The cameramen relocated to right in front of him.

_Here...I throw the Punjab at Raoul, _he reminded himself. They clacked the board again and he jumped into action. Once he threw the famous lasso, they clacked the board again, signaling the stop in shooting.

"Wow….good throw," Patrick said, picking up the loose rope around his neck.

_I assume Gerry isn't skilled in the art of the Punjab, _Erik thought, feeling accomplished with himself as he glanced around to see onlookers appearing impressed.

"Well, you're supposed to throw it at the camera, but yes, good throw Gerry," Joel said. "Let's do that again. You can rope the camera too if you want to."

There was a collective chuckle among the crew and Erik did as he was told, just reliving what he did naturally only stopping and starting at clacks, and lip syncing to the recording of his—Gerry's voice. Patrick and Emmy joined in soon enough, intensifying the memory and his emotion from it, and therefore improving his acting even more. Finally, it was the time he had been waiting for, as the recording started playing that lovely voice of Christine, with Emmy mouthing the words and slowly approaching him. It had already happened to him once—no, twice, there were two kisses—but it didn't make it any less terrifying. In fact, it made it worse because he knew what was going to happen this time.

She was getting closer, closer, and it was impossible to still believe she wasn't Christine. Her face was barely an inch away from his. And at that point, he fell over into the water.


	6. Just Be Yourself

Somehow, Erik felt his feet firmly planted on the walking platform, then suddenly one, then both were on nothing and were sinking, there was a splash, his eyes instinctively closed, and it was chilly all over. Only for a moment did he panic, seeing as his own lake gradually deepened, but he quickly reminded himself how to swim and pushed up to the surface. There wasn't much better up above. More stares. Again.

"Seriously Gerry, what's your problem today?"

For once, it wasn't Joel who was scolding him, it was a different, very British voice. Emmy told him that most of the crew was British, but the only people who really had a right to speak up like that were Joel and Andrew Lloyd Webber.

_Andrew Lloyd Webber? He's the one who's done it! He wrote this thing about my life and now it's going to be a motion picture over 100 years in the future. How? How does he know anything about me? I'm not in history books or on that Google thing that Emmy showed me….well, I am on Google, but all of the information refers to me and everyone I knew as a fictional character that never existed. No, wait…even Andrew Lloyd Webber didn't come up with the fictional idea for me, others did before him…those horrible movie clips….but it all dated back to a book. Who wrote that? It doesn't matter, I think he's long since deceased. Emmy told me that Webber's musical was entirely different from any of them. It took nearly a century after the original book was published to get it right? HOW did he get it so right though?_

"Well? Bloody hell man, can you not talk either?"

"I just fell in, alright! I apologize!" Erik snapped, climbing back on the walkway. A familiar small hand helped him up. Emmy still had that pitying look on her face, but now it was genuine.

"We were good until there, just start with the circling camera at the kiss," Joel instructed one of the cameramen and the guy with what Erik called the clacker.

Clack. "_Pitiful creature of darkness…."_

_Get a hold of your senses, Erik. It's not even her. It's a silly girl from the future….or another dimension…. or from an insane fantasy in your head….who's playing Christine's role. She's doing this because it's her job. So is Chagny—Patrick, I mean. Everyone here is in it for money to make an artistic, fictional production. So play your part and STAY STILL. _

When Emmy's lips touched his, it felt as if he was freezing and melting at the same time. Thankfully, this made him unable to move (and therefore, not fall over again) while at the same time, he was giving a true reaction as a grown man who had only been kissed once—and was now reliving that moment. It seemed to last both forever and for only a millisecond for him, like stopping time and then fast forwarding. It took him a few seconds to realize it was over.

He expected the clack, but other cameras were simply powered on, focusing on Emmy's face and his. Thinking quickly, he worked up some tears and remembered what he had to do.

As it turned out, pretending to distraughtly give up Christine in the name of love was harder than he imagined, since he hadn't actually done it before and known what it was supposed to feel like or why he was even doing it. Hell, he had just been kissed by an exact copy of the woman he loved, he was much too happy to act like his world had fallen apart.

_These are partially forced tears and partially tears of joy….my face can't possibly be showing the right emotions….and of course, Joel's looking at me strangely. Wait, that's because I'm looking at him! Dammit…_

"Cut! Ok, let's uh..just take that part again. I didn't see much crying …."

"I assure you, I was trying my best," Erik said quickly, but Joel just waved at him dismissively.

"It's fine, happens all the time. Someone give him artificial tears!"

_Artificial tears…what kind of era is this that NEEDS artificial tears? _

Soon enough, a middle aged woman ran up to him with a tiny bottle, instructing him to lean his head back. Hesitantly, he did so, waiting for something to happen.

"Look up," she said. He did.

Plop. "Ah!" he winced, blinking furiously and trying to focus. Just when he could see again, she let another drop fall into the other eye. Soon, his eyes felt wet and he was tempted to rub them, but reminded himself of the purpose of the drops.

"Ok, let's shoot this again before they dry up," Joel said, and they began filming again.

/

Christine and Gerry relocated themselves to inside the elephant from _Hannibal_, where they waited for what seemed like an hour, listening to conversations down below. Thus far, they had not discovered much.

"I already knew they were going to be after me, the question is when and how?" Gerry muttered impatiently. Suddenly, he heard some footsteps and then a familiar voice.

"Our resident Phantom will be much easier to catch than before now, trust me. He's completely out of his wits!" Raoul announced to the other men who had been talking. Interested, Gerry and Christine leaned out of the elephant to look down at the stage.

"Well, yes, he's a madman, we knew that much," Firmin huffed.

"No, I mean he's more insane than before. When I went to rescue Christine, he started ranting in a strange, simple, unintelligent dialect, talking about men I have never heard of before and acting as if everything was some kind of joke being played on him. He wasn't even sure of who Christine and I were."

Andre stroked his beard thoughtfully. "Very strange indeed!"

"A joke? He's the one playing tricks on us! This must be some kind of ruse to make us think he will be easy to catch…" Firmin said.

"Maybe, but I doubt it. He appeared truly lost and confused," the Vicomte said, almost sympathetically. "But he still has Christine hostage. We must save her."

"Well why the hell didn't you save her yourself when you were down there?" Firmin snapped, throwing his hands up in frustration. Clearly embarrassed, Raoul looked down.

"He had me bound, sir. He had a rope around my neck and was going to kill me unless Christine chose to be with him forever. I told her not to throw her life away for mine, but she agreed anyway, and kissed him—though I thought that was rather unnecessary…"

The other men cringed at the idea, except for the chief of police, who merely furrowed his brows. Gerry rolled his eyes and scoffed.

"I'm not that disgusting, come on…"

Raoul continued, "After that, he acted as if he had no idea where he was or what was going on. Once he decided he had some sort of concept of the situation, he forced me to leave."

"We ventured down there, armed, after Madame Giry showed us the way, but they could not find his lair. If you lead us down there, we can catch him," said the policeman.

"He has an iron door blocking off the lair."

A stagehand chuckled as if this was a mere trifle. "Then we shall blow it up!"

"Christine is still in there!" Raoul protested. "I at least have some hope of her survival as it is, with that monster holding her captive because he claims that he loves her and will not harm her. But if you bring explosives down there…no. Absolutely not."

"What are we to do, then?" Andre asked worriedly, wringing his hands and looking around at everyone, searching for ideas. Raoul started pacing.

"I honestly have no idea."

Then, a woman in a conservative black dress walked onto the stage with the men, the strikes of her cane on the ground echoing in the massive, domed room.

"Madame Giry," Andre greeted her, tipping his hat. She simply looked at him before addressing the group.

"Have you yet found Christine?"

"No, madam. We could not even find the place where she was taken. The Vicomte found her, but he was unable to save her. Now he says that the criminal's lair is blocked off, with no way to safely get through it. I'm very sorry, there seems to be nothing we can do for now," said the police chief regretfully. Madame Giry looked strangely calm for a woman whose adoptive daughter was trapped underground with an obsessed murderer.

"I know the Phantom very personally. Believe me, he will not harm her," she said cooly. The men all gave her strange looks. Raoul sputtered.

"What? Are you saying that you have no reason to be alarmed? She's like a daughter to you, is she not?"

"Yes, but that does not mean she is not in safe hands. I know the Opera Ghost is very much in love with her, and has been for years. I tried to convince him to leave her alone, but he insisted that he would protect her from all harm. As you know, he has already done so."

"What do you mean? He has her kidnapped!" Raoul gasped.

"Are you speaking of all the incidents that have happened here? Were they all for Christine's benefit?" Andre inquired. Madame Giry nodded.

"Yes. The notes, Carlotta, Buquet, everything. I do not condone his methods, but everything he did was to help Christine reach her potential."

"How exactly did killing Buquet in the middle of a performance help Christine?" Firmin demanded.

"Buquet was a special case. He constantly blamed his own foolishness on the Phantom, scared my ballet girls with stories, and even went searching for him. Still, Erik-"

"Erik? That's the monster's name?" a stagehand asked interestedly. Madame Giry ignored him.

"Erik may not have hung him if Buquet had not been leering at Christine and the other girls so. Erik told me that he found a hole in the wall of Buquet's room, where he watched the girls changing. I honestly cannot say I shed any tears for that man."

"Forgive me, but honestly I do not care about his 'honorable' motives. He is an extortionist, a thief, a kidnapper, and a murderer, and he must be stopped!" the Vicomte shouted, looking to the others for support, which they gave heartily with sounds of agreement.

"You will find that stopping Erik is not so easy as you believe," Antoinette warned.

Firmin pointed an accusing finger at her. "You're helping him, aren't you?"

She looked insulted. "Of course not! I have given you valuable information, have I not?"

Pulling Firmin back, Andre tried to talk sense into him. "She's on our side, Richard, we need her."

Firmin jerked his arm away from his co-manager and glared at Antoinette. "Fine. But she still seems a little too sympathetic towards this Ghost for my taste."


	7. Self Obsessed Erik

CHAPTER 7

"Great job, Gerry!"

"Good work!"

"You did wonderfully!"

Erik had never been praised half this much in his life. After only taking one day to film the final lair scene (which would have taken even less time if Joel didn't need to direct Emmy and Patrick in the right direction) actors and crew alike kept complimenting Erik on his acting skills. These skills, of course, were nonexistent since he was simply being his own insane self, but he was flattered nonetheless.

"Aside from the few blunders at the beginning, you passed the test with flying colors," Emmy said as she walked him to the makeup room, where some woman got to work on removing the prosthetic. Erik had no idea what 'passing a test with flying colors' meant, but it sounded good. Almost as good as removing that damn fake deformity from his face.

It took a lot less time to remove it than put it on, and within minutes, Erik was back to being as normal as any 19th century man stuck in a 21st century movie star's body could be.

"Oh that is MUCH better…" he sighed, feeling the now smooth side of his face. Emmy smiled at his relief, still amused by him.

"So you have the rest of the night. What do you want to do?"

He turned around with an excited expression. "Can I spend more time on that device you showed me yesterday? The one with the Google?"

"My laptop? Um…sure. What do you want to use it for?" she asked.

"To search information about myself on it, of course. Or strange, fictional versions of myself in books and movies anyway."

"And T.V shows, and musicals…" Emmy added absentmindedly. Erik gave her an impatient look and she sighed. "Fine, follow me."

Once at Emmy's acting trailer, Erik spent all night finding every version of his story ever made, with the help of a single YouTube channel. Emmy was getting rather bored, but Erik insisted she watch the videos with him.

After laughing uncharacteristically at another modern joke in a review for the Charles Dance version of Phantom of the Opera, Erik told Emmy, "Whoever is behind the Phantom Reviewer may not have a life, but he's certainly saved mine."

/

"What do we do?" Gerry said in a panicked whisper after the group of Phantom-hunters left.

"Move."

At this point, he almost started hyperventilating. "I can't just move! I have no idea where I am! I mean, I know where I am, but I don't know how this world even works! I don't know where I would go to hide or how to know where they'd be looking or what! And I know you're not going to be running all over the world with me, you don't even know me! I can't be on the run for the rest of my life for things I didn't do in a dimension that doesn't even ex—"

"GERRY. CALM YOURSELF," Christine snapped, gripping his shoulders and giving him a shake. He stared at her, blue eyes wide, holding his breath. She let go of him quickly and backed off a few inches, looking down awkwardly. After a moment, she looked back up at him, pointing a finger at him.

"You are going to be ALRIGHT. I am going to help you. I realize you are in distress but you must control your emotions. Panicking is not productive. If you wish, we will stay here. The lair is blocked off and Madame Giry will not reveal the secret entrance."

"How do you know that?"

"Because she is my only maternal figure and she was Erik's second closest friend."

"Second closest? What?" Gerry scoffed. "Ok, when I was playing his role, I HAD no friends. Madame Giry was sort of an assistant, I guess, but the Phantom was supposed to be the most forever alone guy in the world…"

"Have you heard of the Persian?" Christine asked, a small smile at the corners of her mouth. Gerry blinked.

"The Persian?"

"His name is Nadir Khan, but we all call him the Persian. Erik referred to him as daroga when he was telling me the story. The Persian is an undercover policeman and while investigating the strange occurrences here at the opera—during the time Lefevre was manager—he found the Opera Ghost himself. At first, Erik was going to kill him, but Monsieur Khan somehow convinced him not to. Erik tells me he is very good at bringing him sense—well, what he actually said was 'worming his pathetic morality into my mind and making me weak'," Christine said, rolling her eyes at the thought.

Gerry listened intently, leaning forward as if he would absorb more information. Clearing her throat, Christine continued. "Erik is a very lonely person, even if he does not admit to needing the company of others, and so it was easy for the Persian to befriend him, especially after he agreed to not reveal Erik to authorities. Now he is a regular visitor to the opera, partially for entertainment, but mostly to make sure Erik isn't being too much of a tyrant."

"I never knew any of this…maybe the Persian was a character in another version, but Joel told us not to watch or read any other versions so we wouldn't copy anyone in our acting…" said Gerry, scratching his neck thoughtfully. Then, they both turned their heads as they heard footsteps down below. Someone was walking onto the stage.

"Speak of the devil. Is that him?" Gerry asked eagerly, looking over the dark man who stood several feet below them, slowly scanning the stage. He was wearing normal evening clothes as well as a short astrakhan cap.

"Yes. He often wanders on and around the stage. No one really knows what he's doing, but I can assume he's looking for you—well, Erik, rather," Christine explained. Below, the Persian heard her whisper and looked up into the darkness of the catwalks.

"Is someone there?"

"Are we going to tell him?" Gerry asked Christine, quietly as possible. She bit her lip.

"No one else seems to be present. We can try…" she said before calling out to the Persian. "Hello, monsieur."

"Who's there? Is that you, Christine? What on earth are you doing up there?", Nadir said, shuffling around the stage to try and get a view of her.

"She's with me," Gerry hesitantly said. Immediately, Nadir's face looked disapproving.

"Erik…"

"Come up and we'll explain. There IS a lot to explain," Christine said quickly. Shaking his head, the Persian reluctantly walked to the nearest ladder up to the catwalks, muttering to himself. Christine smiled amusedly at the annoyed man and Gerry anxiously wondered how this all was going to turn out.

"Alright, what is it?" Nadir asked, slightly out of breath as he approached the two. Christine was standing in front of Gerry as if to protect him from any bad reactions Nadir might have.

"We have…a dilemma. This is not Erik."

"Excuse me?"

"I could hardly believe it either, but the way he speaks and acts…it simply can't be Erik. He told me he was playing the role of Erik in some sort of play in the future—"

"A movie. Not a play. It's a moving picture," Gerry chimed in, making the daroga's eyes widen more than they already were at his words and strange accent.

"It is very complex you see. It all happened after I agreed to stay with Erik so he would not kill Raoul…"

At this, the daroga groaned and threw his hands up. "Of course!"

"But after I kissed him, he acted like he had no idea where he was or what was going on. And after the kiss in the play—movie, I mean, Gerry claims that he found himself in Erik's body."

"Well, Erik's never been touched by a woman, much less kissed by one! I can assume he would act very strangely afterwards…" the Persian rationalized, looking at Gerry skeptically, who avoided eye contact—unlike Erik, who would have stared back coldly.

"It has been over a day now, sir. I am quite certain that something unexplainable has happened and that through the kiss, for whatever reason, Erik is now in this actor's body, in the future."

"2004," Gerry added, then gestured to his mask. "I bet he's having a field day not having to deal with this anymore."

Nadir was going to question what a 'field day' was, but had other things to worry about. He was still skeptical of the body-swap to the future idea, but he no longer believed that Erik was simply being more insane than usual. And in his usual nosy policeman-like way, he would get to the bottom of it.


	8. Deep Thoughts and Theories

CHAPTER 8

Emmy appeared extremely calm on the outside but she was constantly second guessing about the Erik/Gerry situation. After all, it was extremely hard to believe. And yet, how could she not believe what was right in front of her? She was never one to be in denial. There was no solid proof aside from the man's behavior, which could only point in one direction—the one he claimed had happened.

After she had distracted him by teaching him how to use the TV remote, she went back to the computer to do some research, unsure if whatever information she found would be helpful or more confusing.

By the time Erik had somehow managed to get stuck on a soap opera and couldn't change the channel (and consequently, was barking at Emmy to fix it) she had found nothing except for books and movies about body swapping.

_Of course, _she thought disappointedly, getting up to show Erik what mistake he had made with the remote.

"Is this what people do now instead of going to see performances? Fascinating though it is, I don't understand how these pre-recorded stories are more exciting than knowing that some sort of…_disaster _could occur in the middle of a play," Erik commented, chuckling a little. Emmy rolled her eyes.

"There's live TV, like the news that you were watching earlier. And people do still go to plays, and concerts, and yes, even operas. Not as often as people used to, I'm sure, but it does happen."

He nodded. "Well, then I have a sliver of hope for this generation after all."

"Please, I know you love it here. Everything's all new and shiny and cool to you."

"Cool? Where I lived was a much colder place…"

"Agh…it means interesting. I have to teach you language lessons as well, apparently," Emmy said with mock exhaustion. Erik didn't get it and he just huffed.

"Excuse me! My fault again."

"It was a joke."

"Oh."

Emmy studied his face for a moment. "You aren't used to joking either, are you?"

He shook his head. "Not particularly. I made my own amusements."

"Like tormenting Carlotta?"

He smirked. "Yes, that. I wish I had done something like that supposed 'original' version of me did, making Chagny go mad. Or the fireball idea from the play this movie is based on…"

"After seeing all those other versions, do you feel a little bit better about your own life?" Emmy asked curiously. He nodded vigorously.

"Well, I'm very glad I'm not attracted to rats…"

Laughing, Emmy said, "Yeah, me too. I meant your face though."

He sighed. "I can't say it was any easier, since people reacted to it as badly as they did with any other version. I admit most of them are worse than mine, though. But it hardly matters to me anymore, since it seems I'll never have that face again."

"Yeah, if we can't get you back," Emmy said thoughtfully, wondering to herself how that would even be possible.

"I'm not sure I want to go back."

She turned to him abruptly, looking shocked. "Why?"

Gesturing around him like it was obvious, Erik said, "Like you said, everything is 'new and shiny and cool' to me. It's fascinating. Every day life is so much easier and comfortable, not having to worry about temperatures or availability of necessities like food and clean water, not to mention how casually one can dress on a daily basis—aside from those jeans you showed me. Those are horribly uncomfortable. But as I was saying, it's a whole new life. A normal one, like I always wanted! Actually, above normal, since I'm now apparently a famous, attractive actor whom everyone loves. Why would I not want this?"

"Well, Christine, for one thing," Emmy said bluntly. Erik swallowed and looked down at his hands, twisting them together slowly as he thought about this.

"You make a very good point."

"Don't you want to get back to her? Even if there's only a chance that you'll actually get her?"

Sighing, Erik looked back up at her, reminding himself yet again that who he was looking at was only the image of Christine. "I do. But you can't imagine the pain involved. Now I know what happens afterwards, don't I? Since everything we film happened in my life. I let her go."

"If you did go back, to that same moment, would you still let her go?"

He closed his eyes for a moment, trying very hard to imagine what he felt like at that moment. It seemed very distant for it only happening a few days ago.

"I honestly have no idea. I desperately want her to be happy, but I can't stand the thought of what we filmed today actually coming true. Just thinking about that kind of sacrifice is painful. Perhaps I would not even remember this and I would just go back to being who I was before all of this. If that were true, I would let her go and live the rest of my miserable life in solitude. And if I did remember, and made her stay, she wouldn't truly want to be there with me."

Nodding sympathetically, Emmy replied, "Well, this is a tough situation. I don't know what Gerry thinks about this, but I can guess he's not much happier being you than you were."

"Assuming he's not used to being hated, hunted down, and surviving without modern technology," Erik quipped, adjusting himself comfortably in Emmy's beanbag chair.

"Yeah, probably not."

"So do you wish us to switch back for his sake? I understand, he is your coworker."

"And friend," she added. "I'm really worried for him…"

Erik sighed, feeling extreme déjà-vu.

"But I don't want you to be miserable either," continued Emmy. Erik perked up at this.

"If it were possible for us to switch back, would you still let me stay here?"

"Well, I'd want to check on him, and maybe see if it's possible for us all to be here…"

Erik shook his head, chuckling quietly in sarcastic amusement at that notion. "Our souls swapped bodies, we can't move our physical beings through space, time, and alternate dimensions!"

"How do you know? Souls swapping bodies is pretty crazy in itself!"

He narrowed his eyes at her, then shrugged. "True."

Pacing in the small trailer, Emmy fidgeted with her hands as she thought this through. "So maybe…we have to do the same thing again."

"You mean you and I and Christine and Gerry simultaneously kiss again? But how do we know if they're trying it as well?"

She ran a hand through her curls absentmindedly and sighed, "That's my problem. I don't know how we're going to do that."

Rising to his feet, Erik smirked a little to himself, thinking, _Well, Christine-clone, you'd better get used to me then, because it looks like I'm going to be here permanently._

_/_

"There are mental illnesses that could have caused this. I honestly would not be surprised at all if Erik was schizophrenic," Nadir suggested.

"What does that mean?" Christine asked. The Persian explained, "A schizophrenic person has delusions, such as hearing voices or believing themselves to be another person."

"Sounds more like her, actually. And I love how you keep talking like I'm not standing right here," Gerry muttered.

"Sounds like me?" Christine gasped, appalled at that suggestion.

"Yeah, the whole Angel of Music thing was kind of an insane thing to believe," Gerry snickered. Nadir quietly began to observe the man's behavior, very interested in how he managed to take on an entirely different personality, accent, and simple way of speaking.

"Insane? I was in mourning and my father gave me a promise. Many people truly believe in angels!"

"Right, right. Well, still, from what we've acted out, the Phantom wasn't the only insane character in the story."

_He's completely separated himself from 'the Phantom'…referring to him as a character in a story, an insane person…and most importantly, he doesn't appear to be particularly affectionate towards Christine, _thought the Persian, taking mental notes.

Turning back towards Nadir, Christine ignored Gerry and politely said, "Please go on."

Nadir calmly continued. "The delusions usually start later in life, around Erik's age. Sometimes, they can act completely normal in conversation, but then act out in a nonsensical or violent way, and believe it to be a rational thing to do. Like when Erik killed Buquet, he thought he did a good thing."

Christine nodded. "This makes sense…"

As Gerry was about to protest, Nadir made another suggestion.

"However, I'm rather sure I would have noticed other signs beforehand. And it also makes sense that Erik would be a strange person in general, due to his past and lifestyle. Because of the way he's been treated, he has different morals than other people. So I can't immediately say it is a mental illness. It could indeed be something supernatural."

"Like what?" Gerry asked.

"Well, in my faith, we believe in things such as miracles, and some believe in curses. It could possibly be a lesson from God, or someone else's prayer carried out on you."

Gerry grimaced at this idea. He wasn't about to get religious with this. It was freaky and complicated enough. But Christine appeared hopeful.

"Yes, I can see that. A lesson…Erik becoming a normal person and seeing the error of his ways!"

"Then why did I have to be involved, hm? I didn't kill anyone," Gerry pointed out.

"You probably have something to learn as well," said Nadir simply. This didn't satisfy Gerry, but he stayed quiet.

Christine carefully asked, "But if it's not an act of God, what about magic? Witches or spells?"

"I personally do not believe in such things," was all the Persian could say about that. Christine was not sure she believed in witches either, but she did believe what Gerry said was true. The three sat together in silence, each wondering different possibilities.

"Ok,_ hypothetically, _if a body swap did happen, then what can we possibly do about it?" Gerry finally asked. Monsieur Khan looked at him almost regretfully, not really knowing what to say.

"I can only guess that you can either do the same thing that swapped you in the first place or learn whatever lesson there is to be learned."

**AN: If you have a question for Erik (or Gerry, or Christine, or Emmy) feel free to put it in a review and I'll incorporate it into the next chapter if at all possible. If I can't get it into the chapter, it should be in another following chapter. Thanks! **


	9. Renewed Jealousy

**AN: I'm doing more research as far as the movie and the actor's opinions (or at least what they'll say on camera) and though I still have to make up what order they did the scenes in, as well as other things, I've found quite a few funny interviews, including these two on youtube.**

watch?v=GhQTe8U3T2Y&feature=relmfu

watch?v=2o0Ga7cwF4E&feature=relmfu

**For some reason the whole link won't work but just go to youtube then copy and paste that at the end of the url address. (they have dumb titles, I know, but they're great) "****I got to kiss both of them, I know! One of the reasons I took the job…" XD Sorry, had to quote Emmy on that. Anyway, here's the chapter.**

CHAPTER 9

Joel announced that today they would be filming the graveyard scene, which everyone but Erik was aware of. Immediately, he thought of combating Raoul in a (rather unfair) swordfight, and mildly panicked about not getting too into his own life events and actually harming the actor (not that he cared for Patrick's well being, but it would be quite problematic if he were out of a job, or worse, sent to a futuristic prison, with no Emmy around to guide him.)

But as he soon found out, they were only filming Emmy's part in 'Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again'. So technically, none of the other actors had to be there, and many weren't, but Emmy did not inform him of this. Perhaps she wanted him there, like Christine wanted him there for her own performances.

Shaking off this ridiculous thought, Erik crossed his arms and leaned against the studio wall, distracting himself by wondering how exactly one makes indoor snow. When the music started and Emmy began lip syncing to her own voice as she acted, Erik was once again blown away. Just when he got close to accepting that she wasn't at all like Christine in anything but appearances and seeing her for what she was, something like this would happen, practically inducing flashbacks.

_Dammit, why does she have to actually SOUND like her too?_

Soon enough, Joel cut her off and stopped the music, calling her over to give her some instruction. Erik frowned. She was doing fine!

"Great, isn't she? Especially for her age," said a friendly but infuriatingly familiar voice. Forcing himself to turn to Patrick with a polite smile, he nodded.

_Not him either. None of this is real. Well, it's real…I think…but it's not the same thing. This is your coworker. He has absolutely no feelings for Emmy. And you don't either. In this time period, she is FAR too young for either of us—a bit extreme of a custom, but that is how it is. So I have nothing to concern myself with!_

"When they said they'd actually be using a 16 year old girl to play Christine, I almost laughed—I mean, how am I supposed to relate to her enough to play a romantic role with her?" Patrick continued, gesturing towards Emmy, who was still talking with Joel, making sure she understood exactly what to do for the scene.

"Yes, she's young," Erik replied mechanically, not really knowing what else to say.

"But she seems so grown up, you'd never guess it, you know?"

"I agree, she is a very mature young woman. Very easy to converse with."

Patrick laughed. "Well, I meant her looks, but that too."

Erik went a little rigid, looking back at Emmy. _He doesn't mean it in that way, not at all, calm down, Erik, calm down, keep a cool head…._

"Oh, that, yes, she could pass for twenty or older. I'm sure you had no problem, um…getting into character with her," Erik said quickly, hoping he sounded casual enough not to cause suspicion.

"Oh yeah, we get along. But I still feel bad about her having to ice her lips," Patrick said, laughing a little. Erik raised a brow, turning to him.

"Ice her lips?"

"Yeah, the rooftop scene. We had to kiss for three days for Joel to be satisfied with how it looked. You were there, remember?"

"Oh. Yes, of course," said Erik shortly. He paused a moment before adding, "I wonder why it only took 19 takes for Emmy and myself."

"I don't know, maybe Joel thinks you have better chemistry," Patrick joked, elbowing him lightly in the side. Erik was not sure what exactly that action meant (what strange, modern people with their constant touching) but he assumed it was nothing to worry about.

He was about to come up with a reply to that when the bell rang for everyone on set to be silent as the music started up again. Emmy's voice was strong with emotion, as were her features as she walked slowly through the graves. She got much further this time, all the way to the Daae grave, in fact.

"_Help me say…goodbye!"_

Joel counted down to the cameras silently with his fingers until the music stopped, then said, "Aaandd…cut! Good job! That went by faster than expected. Looks like we can continue onto the next scene. Are Patrick and Gerry here?"

"Yeah, right here," Patrick called to the director, who nodded.

"Well, go get into costume and we'll try to get through to some of the swordfight scene today," said Schumacher.

_Oh come on, I hoped I could go one day without wearing that blasted thing…_Erik complained silently as he reluctantly headed off backstage towards the makeup room. To his surprise, when he got in there, there was only one woman who came in to assist him, rather than the normal five or six.

He wanted to ask where the others were, but he refrained, not wanting to appear dense yet again. So he sat there silently as the woman started on the general, base movie makeup on the left side, as usual. When she continued over to the right, he was even more confused, but still said nothing. He wished she would at least make conversation with him to make this less awkward.

When she was finished, she handed him his costume and mask and left, closing the door behind her.

_It appears the deformity is not necessary for scenes in which is is not shown…which is most of the time. How wonderful for me! _He realized, eagerly dressing himself and walking out, not even mildly annoyed at the fact that he still had to wear the mask.

"Eri—Gerry!"

Emmy. He turned around as she rushed to him.

Quietly, so none of the passing people could hear, she hissed, "I really hope you knew how to swordfight in your time, because they were training you and Patrick for it a week ago. I could stall, but I have no idea how to teach you to do it…"

Erik shook his head, smiling a little at her fretting. "It is alright, I had spent some time practicing when I realized the Vicomte was more of a threat than I imagined. Of course, he was more skilled and won, so I'm sure my lack of formal training will actually become useful in acting it out."

Nodding but still a bit fidgety, Emmy said, "Of course, of course…right. Well, I guess we should be on set now."

"Most likely," said Erik, starting to walk towards the studio, but then stopped. "Wait, I have to ask you something."

"Yeah?"

"You said it wasn't usual for a man of mine or Patrick's ages to court a girl as young as yourself, correct?"

She thought back. "Yeah, I think I did tell you that when I was telling you about other modern customs…why?"

"Well, I could be mistaken, but from the conversation he had with me earlier, I feel I should warn you of how you come across to him."  
"And how do I come across?" Emmy asked a little curtly, crossing her arms.

"Um…well…I believe the word he used was 'mature'," he answered cautiously. Emmy, raising an eyebrow and laughing, looked at him disbelievingly.

"And that's a bad thing? Really?"

"I mean he said it in reference to your looks as well as your behavior. For you, that's wonderful to be taken seriously and all, but I believe that he means he can see you as older than you are and therefore…"

"You mean you think he has a crush on me?" Emmy snorted, shaking her head. "Erik, that's absurd."

"But Emmy—"

"Come on, we have to get to our places," she cut him off, taking him by his wrist and pulling him to the studio. Erik cooperated and climbed the ladder behind the model grave, prepared to jump off for the attack on Raoul. These lines he knew perfectly, since he actually did sing them to Christine, but he wasn't going to actually be lipsyncing or saying anything during this scene since he was out of sight and Monsieur Butler had already recorded the song.

"_Wandering child, so lost, so helpless, yearning for my guidance…"_

_I would really want to meet this man, but I'm afraid I'm having too much fun BEING him, _Erik thought amusedly as he toyed with the sword prop, waiting for the cue to jump off.

"Christine, whatever you believe, this man, this thing, it's not your father!"

And there was his cue. Leaping off of the mauloseum, Erik lunged at Patrick with the sword, copying every move he remembered from the actual swordfight and trying to fuel his acting with hatred towards the Vicomte while stabilizing his brain by reminding himself who it really was. But strangely, reminding himself that this was Patrick didn't pull him back down to earth. In fact, it increased his ferocity.

Everyone watched with anticipation for someone to mess up, but the two men kept going through the scene, clashing metal and dodging behind graves. There was enough space and enough cameramen to avoid eachother but catch every angle of the fight. An impressed Joel nodded a little to himself as he watched, as if encouraging them to keep on. To Erik, this all was a blur of very real anger. To everyone else, it was damn good acting.

Finally, Patrick had him shoved on the ground with the sword raised as if to finish him off, and the scene cut so cameras could move to view Emmy and a close up of Patrick. Only then did Erik return to the real world.

Emmy noticed Patrick wince and rub his arm (where the small bag of fake blood had burst under his shirt as it was supposed to when Erik spun around and struck him with the sword) but apparently, Erik had done more than just cut open the bag. Quickly walking over to him, she asked if he was ok.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine, he just hit pretty hard," Patrick shrugged it off, still rubbing his arm. Emmy opened the slash on his shirt and looked under the popped blood bag and saw a dark reddish purplish line.

"Ohh…"

"What?"

"Well, you're definitely bruised," she said, then looked back at it and noticed there was also a small scratch on top of the line. "And you have a small cut…"

"Really?" Patrick said in surprise, looking at the wound. "Damn, he really did get me!"

"What is going on?" Joel droned over the crew's murmuring. Emmy looked over to him and held up Patrick's arm.

"He's kind of hurt—for real, I mean."

"Oh, come on, it can't be that bad," Andrew said, rolling his eyes. Schumacher motioned Patrick over.

"Let's see it."

When he saw the welt forming with the long scratch on top of it, Joel narrowed his eyes.

"Gerry, come here."

Erik had been waiting anxiously for this to happen. Reluctantly, he got up and walked over next to Patrick. Joel looked at him dully, like he couldn't believe such stupidity, then sharply gestured to the injury.

"Gerry, the hell?"

"I'm sorry, I swear I did not intend for that to happen," Erik said quickly, then looked at Patrick, apologizing again.

"It's fine, really. Don't worry about it," said Patrick, appearing a little embarrassed at all this attention given to him because of this, like he was some little kid that fell down and scraped his arm. Andrew walked over, giving his forehead a smack with the same attitude that Joel had about the situation.

"I'm all for you getting into character, but for God's sake, man, don't actually injure people," snapped the playwright. Erik nodded compliantly, muttering more apologies.

_Everyone's getting so worked up over such a little injury…ridiculous...he doesn't even care! And if I hadn't actually hurt him, he might not have acted hurt so well! I MADE the scene, _he thought as he stalked off back to his place. _Weak, whiny Americans…._


	10. Lessons and Cliches

**AN: Thanks so much for the reviews! I really love the feedback! **

CHAPTER 10

"What lesson could I possibly have to learn? I already got sober and got my life together, now I'm pretty much the definition of successful! And I don't think I pissed off any weird old ladies recently…" Gerry muttered to himself as he and Emmy headed down more secret passageways, in hopes of finding the kitchens as both of them were starving. Nadir had long since left, since he had to attend to his other affairs.

"Weird old ladies? Do you mean witches?"

"Yeah, in movies, if you're a douche to an old lady, you get cursed with something," said the actor nonchalantly. Christine nodded, fascinated.

"What other themes are in these movies?"

"Well, if you're a whore, you die, if you're black, you die, if you're on drugs, you die…well, those are just themes of horror movies," he said, smirking a little.

"What of romances?"

Gerry stopped and looked at her in amusement. "If it's a romantic comedy, they're equally cliché."

"How so?"

Sighing and rolling his eyes, he tried to figure out a way to explain it to her. "Ok, so either the guy and girl are childhood friends—"

"Like me and Raoul!" Christine exclaimed.

"Yes…but not exactly. They're friends through childhood and most of adulthood, then the girl suddenly gets engaged or whatever to some new guy, who's usually a total dick, and only then does the friend guy realize that he likes the girl. So he does a whole lot of overused, supposedly funny tricks to get her back or make her realize that the guy she's with is not the one for her. And usually he shows up at the last minute—I mean, the LAST minute, at the wedding, and stops it. And she completely forgets about the other guy she's marrying and goes off with her best friend."

"Well, that's endearing in a way but rather nonsensical…"

"Exactly," Gerry said dully. Christine perked up again.

"You said 'either'. What's the other option in romantic movies?"

"The guy and girl hate each other then fall in love," he said shortly. His stomache growled again and he urged Christine to keep moving, even as her questions never ceased.

"But how does that happen?"

"They just have dumb arguments and get stuck in situations, like they have to work together for some stupid reason, and then they accidentally touch or something and it's supposed to be some great 'spark' between them but neither of them admit it. Then, of course, one gets jealous of the other's new boyfriend or girlfriend and finally confesses they had feelings all along."

"Hm…well I have seen that theme before in works such as Pride and Prejudice…not the exact same ideas, but quite close," Christine mused.

"See, you'd think they could come up with better material after a few centuries."

Christine laughed in that childishly endearing way she always did with a high, little giggle. "Did you act in romantic comedies?"

"Not exactly. There's been romance and comedy in a lot of things I've done, but I haven't done a movie that's focused on it."

"Except my story, I assume?"

Gerry shook his head. "Nah, that's not the same kind of romance. It's not annoying and stupid. I actually really like doing dark, twisted romances like this. Almost as much as I like dying in movies. Anyway, I played Dracula a few years ago, which was pretty fun. You've heard of it, right? Wait…that was written after your time I think…unless of course your dimension changes the date of that being published as well as the time of the Prussian War…"

"I don't think it does, for I have never heard of it. What is it about?"

_So much explaining…._he thought, feeling irritated at first, but as he started to tell the story, he started enjoying Christine's reactions.

"I don't remember much from the original book, which was close to this time period, but the movie I was in was set and filmed in the year 2000. So there's these bank robbers who break into a huge, highly protected vault, expecting to find tons of gold and diamonds, right? But what they actually find is a lot of creepy stuff like skulls and crosses, and in the middle of the vault is a coffin…"

By the time he started getting past the superstition and to the actual twisted romance of the whole story, Christine found a ladder leading up to a trapdoor that had an etching of pots and pans.

"Here's the kitchen, Gerry!"

She listened a while to make sure she didn't hear any footsteps, then cautiously creaked open the trap door and peered out. Just as she thought the coast was clear, she heard feet rush into the kitchen, and she quickly shut the door, praying she wasn't seen.

"It appears we have to wait a while…" she said, staying at the top of the ladder. It took about five minutes of forced patience before there were no longer any noises. Opening the trap door again, she climbed up through it and quickly rushed through the kitchen, grabbing a loaf of bread, a bowl of fruit, and a two prepared sandwiches.

"This should last us a day, at least," she said, struggling to carry the items back down the ladder and hand them to Gerry. He frowned.

"Is there no wine or anything up there?'

She sighed in irritation and went back up to fetch a bottle. When she came back down with it, he sat down on the cold floor of the underground hallway, popping open the wine bottle and taking a swig before handing it to Christine, who hesitantly took a sip.

"Please go on with your Dracula story."

Gerry nodded, picking up his sandwich and taking a bite before starting. "Sure, ok. So this girl, Mary, has these nightmares of Dracula—me, of course—either killing people or coming closer to her like some sort of predatory lover…"

This part, of course, reminded Christine of Erik. Lots of things about this story reminded her of Erik. When Gerry got to telling her about the erotic scenes, she instinctively curled up in discomfort. Noticing this, he stopped.

"Ah, I forgot. You don't talk about this kind of stuff much, do you?"

She shook her head quickly. "Just some of the ballet girls do, but they don't go into detail in front of me."

"Why not?"

"Well, Meg is my only friend. I'm sort of an outcast. They think I'm utterly mad because of my belief in the Angel of Music, even though they believed in the Phantom when I did not. Also, I'm the least…ahem, promiscuous of them."

"You mean you're a total prude?"

Christine frowned. "If by 'prude', you're mocking me—"

"No, no, that's fine to be all pure and innocent," Gerry defended himself quickly, holding up his hands. "I'm sure my own society could use some of that."

"Why, is everyone a total whore in your time?" she mimicked him sharply. Surprised, he gave her miniature applause.

"Bravo! I've never heard you say a single rude thing until now! And yeah, most people are, at least compared to times past."

"So everyone accepts premarital intercourse?"

"Honey, we accept a hell of a lot more than that."

Christine narrowed her eyes and opened her mouth to say something, but just shut it again and crossed her arms, looking away. Gerry sensed she didn't approve. Of course. For some reason, he felt as if he needed to educate her more on the subject. If she continued to be this uptight, she'd never have any fun.

Taking another gulp of the wine, he casually said, "Well, it's not like they wake up one day and decide to sleep with everyone they find attractive. And you don't have to go to such extremes. I mean, that kiss with Raoul on the roof was pretty heated…"

Christine blushed hotly and gasped. "You know about that?"

"Well, yeah, I saw everything Erik saw."

"Oh…of course…"

"Anyway, you did enjoy that, right?"

"Well…yes, I suppose so."

"Mmhm. We haven't filmed it yet, so I don't know exactly how it plays out, but I'm sure that during 'Past the Point of No Return' you were pretty _excited_ as well."

Christine tightened her jaw and didn't reply. Gerry just smirked.

"See, I know the whole point of your love story—Raoul is like that first guy in every girl's life that she realizes she has feelings for, and at the same time, before you can get really used to innocent romance, Erik is bringing you over to the darker, adult side of all things naughty," he said, chuckling as Christine looked more and more uncomfortable with the subject. "I mean, you were engaged to Raoul. What did you think was going to happen once you got married?"

"I'm not dense, I knew what would happen…"

"Yeah, but were you prepared for it? I think not. It would probably be the most awkward, dull, emotionless sex the world has ever known without Erik to make you grow up a little bit."

"Are you saying I'm a mere child until I do such inappropriate things?"

Gerry closed his eyes, shaking his head and laughing at her. "You will be until you stop calling it stuff like 'inappropriate'."

Huffing, Christine stood up. "Why do you mock me so? Why are you being so harsh? I've done nothing but help you!"

Rising to his feet as well, wine bottle still in hand, he stepped closer. "I'm sorry. I don't mean to insult you. I'm trying to help you too."

"Help me what?"

"Loosen up. Have fun."

"I do have fun," she snapped, grabbing the bottle from his hand and taking the biggest gulp she could manage. When she grimaced and coughed, Gerry had to hold back another laugh so as not to offend her again.

"Really? What do you consider fun, Christine?"

Looking up as she thought, she took another sip of wine. "Hearing stories—I always liked that…"

"I can tell."

Ignoring him, she continued. "My talks with Meg are always quite entertaining. Sometimes the ballet girls dare each other to do things, like run up and kiss a stagehand or steal something from Carlotta or mix up Reyer's sheet music …they don't dare me to do anything much, except when Sorelli dared me to sleep in Box Five…"

"Did you?"

"Yes, I did," she replied proudly. "And not a single frightening thing happened. Erik doesn't exactly have a use for Box Five in the middle of the night, anyway."

Gerry nodded slowly, leaning on the stone wall with his arms crossed, not quite believing her but entertained all the same. He didn't have to do anything but look at her like this for her to go on.

"And this isn't the first time I've drank before, in case you were wondering," Christine added defensively, holding up the bottle. He just nodded again, still smiling.

"What?" she finally demanded. Taking a few steps closer, Gerry asked, "How far as Meg gone?"

"You mean in travel?"

Resisting the urge to roll his eyes, he patiently elaborated. "No, I mean how much has she done physically with a member of the opposite sex."

Eyes widening for a moment before putting on a casual face, Christine replied, "Just kissing a few stagehands and younger members of the orchestra."

"Mmhm…and yourself?"

"That's none of your business."

"I already know your business, remember?" Gerry chuckled, stepping closer again. Backing up at the same time, the singer shot back, "Yes, so you need not know any more of it!"

"Christine. Come on. You're not going to shock me. I can probably guess," he said smoothly. "You had absolutely no experience whatsoever before kissing Raoul on the rooftop, correct?"

Narrowing her eyes, she simply replied, "You're wrong."

"I must say, you're a very good liar. I could almost believe you if I didn't know pretty much everything there is to know about your life."

"You know only a small portion of it," Christine retorted, stepping back again as she realized Gerry had come closer once more. How did he keep doing that without her noticing?

"Yeah, that's true, but I know your character. Someone as prudish as you can't have done anything more than—"

"Alright! Fine! I haven't done anything with anyone before Raoul! Are you satisfied? Are you happy you have something else to mock me for? Good for you, you know that 'prudish' Christine is inexperienced as ever! Are you expecting a reward?" she ranted, finally snapping.

"That right there is my reward," said Gerry simply. Still slightly red in the face from her frustration, Christine looked at him with a mix of anger and confusion.

"What is?"

"Well, you accepted the truth, and you got angry."

"How is that beneficial to you?"

Smiling, Gerry looked down at her and said quietly, "Because now I know who you really are, and so do you. No one can be that sweet and innocent and perfect all the time. There was a little flash of this when you told Erik you hated him. Remember that? Pretty feisty of you. See, that wasn't the accepting, nice little girl everyone expects you and every other female to be."

"And since when were you a feminist?"

"Well, for one thing, everything's equal in my time, women do pretty much everything men do aside from certain contact sports, and for another, a fake ideal is quite annoying to deal with," Gerry quipped.

"Fake ideal? Are you implying that my personality is an act? That I simply try to please others?"

"Yes, but you don't do it consciously. You've just been brought up that way," he replied. Christine didn't reply for a while, just took a few more sips from the wine bottle as she thought about this.

_Is this true? Am I just trained to make other people happy? No…I really do want them to be happy…but I don't always feel pleased in doing so. But serving others isn't just society's ideal, any good Christian, male or female, should be charitable and generous. Then again, there were times I could have put my foot down and refused without being hurtful to anyone…such as when Erik reacted so violently when I removed his mask. No, I shouldn't have done something so intruding, but he shouldn't have said such horrible things to me afterwards! I could have put him in his place, climbed into the boat, and gone back up myself and leave him to his own misery. And Raoul KNEW I didn't want to be bait for his phantom-catching scheme. But I accepted anyway because of the greater good…but what good was it when the show resulted in innocent deaths and Raoul's life hanging in the balance? _

"So how do you suggest I get rid of this terrible flaw of mine?" she asked sarcastically, challenging him with her eyes. He shrugged.

"I don't know. Do something you wouldn't normally do. What that may be is your decision."


	11. Shifting Feelings

**AN: Thanks for the reviews! Here's one of Gerry's interviews on YouTube—yes, he seems to be total bros with Patrick…which makes sense why Patrick would be confused when 'Gerry' suddenly acts like he hates him….hm…anyway, here it is.**

watch?v=LhWyz-6iG2w&feature=my_watch_later_videos&list=WLC18729865DC07B39

CHAPTER 11

Erik expected to be shunned by people now after the accident with Patrick, but no one seemed bothered. In fact, the crew fawned over him more than ever for his performance.

"Only one take for such a complicated scene! Well done, Mr. Butler, well done!"

"Little accidents like that are what makes it look real. Don't you worry, sir."

"You were so believable, I could practically feel the anger radiating off you!"

Feeling a bit claustrophobic, Erik muttered a few thanks and hurried out to his own trailer, closing the door behind him. Taking a few deep breaths, he fell back down on the small couch, looking at the modernized space around him. He knew he was happy in this situation. He knew it was exactly what he had wanted and hoped for all his life—to be normal. And he got MORE than that, more than just being accepted as a person, he was loved by the entire American public! He had also just found himself in a much better future, with ingenious inventions and a fairer government and a much more tolerant society. And he wasn't exploring it alone. He had a beautiful, helpful young lady to lead his tour of the 21st century. And she looked just like Christine.

Why then were his eyes stinging?

_It has to be Christine. I miss her. But it's only been a few days…I went three months without her once, planning my opera…oh, I did miss her then, but I did NOT cry. Maybe I miss the life I was used to, understanding everything around me and knowing everyone, even if they did not know me. Maybe I miss the Opera itself. Or perhaps I do not miss anything at all, it's just I know I am trapped somewhere and I can never leave as long as I live. Poor Christine…I was thinking of subjecting her to that same fate…_

Someone knocked on the door a couple of times. Reluctantly getting up and wiping his eyes, Erik checked the window to see who it was. Emmy, of course. He opened it and forced a smile to greet her.

"Hi," she said simply, looking a little nervous. "May I come in?"

"Of course."

After she stepped inside, Erik relaxed on the couch once more and motioned her to sit beside him. Once she did, she noticed his face.

"Um…are you alright?"

"Yes, yes, I'm fine."

"You look like you've been crying," she said sympathetically. He shook his head.

"Not a lot. Just a couple of tears. I don't even know where they came from, they just did."

"Oh…that happens to me sometimes too. Most of the time I have a reason but then one day I'll find myself randomly crying and I don't know why."

For some reason, the idea of an upset Emmy fell heavy on Erik's heart, just as when he saw little Christine for the first time, all alone, weeping for her father.

"Well, I only have theories but none of them seemed to match in my head," he murmured. After a moment, he looked up at her again with a small smile. "So, what did you come here for?"

"Um…well…"

"Yes?"

Emmy quickly put on a perfectly casual face and said, "I just wanted to see how you were doing, you know, to make sure you hadn't blown up the coffee machine or something…"

Chuckling a little, Erik shook his head. "No, I don't touch anything you haven't taught me how to use."

"That's good. Ah, and um…we aren't on set tomorrow, since they're just filming the end grave scene with Patrick as an old man—"

"End grave scene?"

"Oh. Well, it's a flash forward after Christine and Raoul have grown old together and she's died, and he goes to an auction at the Opera in the beginning of the movie and buys your old monkey music box, then takes it to Christine's grave and puts it there, but finds a rose with a ring around it—your ring."

"How very depressing."

"Yes, from what I've read, it does seem quite sad," she mused. "But if they finish with that scene, then they're going to move to the chandelier crash—just to get it over with. We aren't needed for that. They'll just have a few shots of us separately after we do 'Point of No Return'…"

At this, Erik genuinely smiled. That was one part of his life that he'd love to relive—at least up until the unmasking part.

"Oh…will I be wearing the prosthetic during that whole song?" he asked worriedly. Feeling self conscious would not exactly help him in such a bold scene.

She shook her head. "No, no, they'll just put it on at the very moment of the unmasking."

"Oh, alright then."

"Yes…"

Emmy looked down at her hands, biting her lip subtly as she appeared to be deep in thought.

"Is there something else you came here for?" Erik asked nonthreateningly. Sighing , she looked up to the side, avoiding eye contact.

"Well, nothing has actually happened, but…"

She stopped again, turning her face down, her curls falling in front of her eyes as she shook her head. "Nevermind, it's nothing."

"Emmy, you can't just build up suspense like that and not tell me what's going on."

With a nervous, shifty smile, she shrugged and said. "Well, maybe you were right about Patrick. Or maybe I'm just being paranoid. See, like I said, he hasn't actually done anything like made a move or something, but I just get this feeling…"

"What makes you have that feeling?" Erik persisted, very interested now.

"After filming this, he just gave me more compliments than usual and I just noticed him looking at me while I walked off, a different look than he normally does. Almost like the 'scan', you know?"

"No, I don't know," said Erik bluntly. Emmy shifted uncomfortably as she explained.

"The scan is when you look at someone up and down like you're checking them out—er…admiring them, rather."

"Oh."

"Anyway, I mean, I know he doesn't see me as a dumb little teenager he's forced to work with, I know he respects me as an equal coworker, but…."

"It's just odd for a man of that age to be 'scanning' you?" Erik inquired. She nodded but said nothing.

"What kind of compliments does he give you?" he continued.

"Um…well, usually, it's just a simple 'good job, Emmy' or something, then he walks off, but he stayed there, going on about my acting like I was so amazing, and said they really picked the perfect Christine—"

"Well they did, you're her exact copy."

"I know that, Erik…" Emmy sighed. "But he doesn't. And I think he said something like I was the perfect Christine because of my voice, commitment to the job, and because I 'definitely looked the part for a famously beautiful woman'-"

Slapping his knees and jumping up, Erik laughed and exclaimed as he pointed at her, "HA! See, I told you, Emmy! He fancies you, I knew it…I knew I wouldn't be able to escape Chagny even when I traveled to another bloody dimension where such a relationship isn't even proper! Oh God really is a joker, isn't he?"

"Is this one of your episodes?" Emmy asked, looking at him in concern as he walked around in circles erratically. Stopping and facing her with a mildly unstable grin, Erik replied, "Hm?"

"Erik, you don't have anything to worry about. First off, he's smart enough not to pursue me, even if he did actually mean that compliment in a flirting sort of way, and second…why do you care?"

"That's a very good question. Why DO I care? Hm…well, you look, sound, and can act like Christine, even though your actual personality is quite different-"

"So you care just because in your eyes, it's still the same situation because of appearances?" Emmy asked, a bit bitterly. "You know, for someone who feels so wronged by society for judging him on his own appearance, you're pretty superficial yourself—"

"You didn't allow me to finish," said Erik in a serious tone. Throwing her hands up in mock surrender, Emmy said, "Oh by all means, go on."

"See, things like that…things you say like that I rarely saw in Christine, if ever. I realize you aren't the same person. I know. And both your similarities and your differences is what makes you…." He trailed off, then turned away. "No, I'm not finishing that sentence."

The girl scoffed and chuckled in amusement of the irony. "Oh really? 'Emmy, you can't just build up suspense like that and not tell me what's going on.'"

"Fine. It's what makes you…interesting. No, fascinating is a better word. Intriguing."

"I think I would be more fascinating if I acted just like Christine too," said Emmy suspiciously. Erik shook his head.

"No, because I know how Christine works. Not that she isn't interesting, she was my entire world…wait, is…was…damn, I don't know anymore. Anyway, I can't predict you half as easily."

"You haven't known me as long."

"It's not just that. Christine responds the same way in almost every situation. She has her surprising moments, yes, but mostly, I can expect her to either be compliant or to shrink away in horror."

"Well, from playing her part, I can guess that maybe you haven't seen all sides of her personality yet," said Emmy. "People in this time are much less pressured to act a certain way. Maybe if you were in the right situation with her, such as if you had kept her with you after letting Raoul go, she might have shown her true colors after being away from the rest of the world for so long."

"Maybe…but wait. Do you think that you have the same personality as her, except you show it and she hides it?" Erik gasped, suddenly hit with this new idea.

Tiredly, Emmy only replied, "Erik, I have no idea."

For a minute, they were silent as Erik paced and Emmy adjusted herself on the couch so that she was laying down comfortably with one leg crossed over the other. She was just about to consider taking a nap when Erik spoke again.

"We can only know from a parallel. See, your Gerry and I must also have the exact same personality for you and Christine to be the same person as well. But Gerry and I do not even have the same face—except for one side of it, of course. But tell me about his personality."

Laughing shortly, Emmy said, "I can assure you, he is nothing like you."

Erik frowned. "Is that a good or bad thing?"

"Neither."

"Well, tell me how we are different."

Shrugging, she said, "I don't know. A lot of ways. He's extremely friendly, like I told you. He makes jokes a lot and is pretty flirtatious. That's what makes him so popular."

"So he's like Chagny?"

Emmy rolled her eyes. "No. He has a deep side too. He really understands characters like yourself. He's had his pain and struggles in life, but mostly against himself rather than the world. Oh, but he doesn't seem preoccupied with finding a life partner, or even a serious girlfriend. Most people by his age are at least in a long term relationship, engagement, or marriage. Sure, he has a lot of time left for that, but still. I don't think he cares much. He seems like he's more out to just have fun."

At this, Erik became a little worried. "So since he's me now…how do you think he's acting towards Christine?"

"Well, first, I'm sure he was completely freaking out. If she's helping him adjust, like I am with you, he's probably hitting on her like crazy just because he knows he's allowed to."

"What? Why, did he attempt to woo you before?"

"Well…sort of like Patrick is now only Gerry would hug me and stuff. We had to all hang out a few times before filming so we'd get comfortable with each other and be able to act properly. Patrick was only polite and friendly. Gerry tended to be the one who got real close to me. Only I always found Gerry attractive so I wasn't bothered by it. And I figured he just flirted with everyone. Famous, gorgeous actors usually do."

Erik couldn't help but feel instantly flattered, even though this wasn't even his own body. Then again, ninety percent of it was the same…he simply had to ask.

"Did you find him attractive even when he was in makeup and costume?"

Smirking, Emmy replied, "You mean would I find you attractive in your own body? Yeah, probably. Honestly the lack of hair was worse than the actual deformity. It's pretty easy to look past for someone in this century. So I still had a lot of fun kissing Gerry—then of course, you suddenly popped up."

Erik was about to be offended, but she laughed so he knew she meant no harm by this comment.

"That is good to know."

"So to answer your question earlier, I'm pretty sure you aren't hiding any parts of your personality, seeing as you've rejected society as they rejected you, and Gerry definitely doesn't have anything to hide, and you're still completely different. So Christine and I are still not the same person, even if she is pressured to act a certain way."

Erik, surprised to feel relieved by this, was very quiet for a while. He looked over to Emmy (who was still sprawled on the couch in a rather comical way) and went over to sit on the small space left next to her hip. She was a little surprised by the close proximity, but didn't show it. After a few more moments of thought, Erik shifted his gaze to her eyes.

"I have another question."

"What?"

"Which one of us do you prefer?"


	12. Dares

**AN: I know I've been spoiling you but don't freak out when you don't get an update every day for a while :P I'm going to be on vacation starting Sunday so that's why I won't be updating for a week or so. I'm sorry! **

CHAPTER 12

Christine gave Gerry a look of annoyed confusion and replied, "I can't just do something I wouldn't ordinarily do on the spot like that."

"Well, you don't have to do it right this second."

"At least give me some examples," she sighed. Looking up as he thought, he started numbering off things on his fingers and making a list.

"You could…tell Carlotta off, slap Carlotta, play a cruel joke on Carlotta, compete with me to see who can make Carlotta cry first…"

"What do you have against Carlotta?" she asked, perplexed. He shrugged.

"Absolutely nothing. But she's the only one I know you don't particularly care for."

"I don't like some of the girls in the ballet."

"Then do something to them," said Gerry dismissively. As she glared at him, he took his wine bottle back with his usual smirk. He was really starting to annoy her.

"Why must I do something hateful to someone to be deemed genuine?"

"You don't have to do something hateful. You can do something pleasurable."

At this, Christine threw her hands up and just started walking away, muttering, "Oh there you go, talking about THAT again…"

"Hey, hey, not so fast, I'm not telling you to do anything extreme," Gerry assured her as he followed at a fast pace. "Come on, I need help anyway with all this food you just stole…"

To his satisfaction, she turned around.

"What is this not so extreme thing then? Because what's commonplace to you is usually quite extreme for me, you know…"

Putting his hands on her shoulders like he was calming down a small, fussing child, he said, "I'm telling you, it's not much. Even for you. Just…kiss someone."

Christine just looked at him like the first time he showed up in Erik's body and didn't know what was going on.

"Uh…I have…you know that…this is supposed to be something I've never done before—"

"You haven't kissed _me_ before," Gerry pointed out. Just as quickly as he said that, he felt himself shoved back at least a foot and almost lost his footing. Once again, Christine was quickly walking away.

"Come on, I was kidding! Don't you know what kidding is in this century? I mean, it would be great if you thought I was serious, that would be really funny…oh good, you're coming back…OW! Ok, that was really unnecessary, Christine! I think you're taking me a little too seriously on the whole 'getting angry and letting go' part…."

/

"Erik, that's like…asking a mother which kid she loves more! Or something…not exactly, but you get my point. I can't decide that! I've only known you for a few days…"

Erik gave Emmy an impatient look. "You've known my character for years. Apparently, everyone does."

"Well, THAT is like assuming you know an actor's true personality based on their movies. I mean, I could say that I object strongly to things like _murder _for instance, and that since I'm pretty sure Gerry didn't kill anyone and you have, I like him better, or that I personally prefer if a guy doesn't smoke so I like you better, but that's ridiculous, I can't just—"

"It's not hard, Emmy. I'm not asking who is the more moral person. Morality is a very subjective concept and a lot more complicated than just knowing which people you prefer to spend your time with…"

Emmy closed her eyes and rubbed them with her fingertips tiredly as he spoke, then finally gestured for him to stop. "Fine, ok, let me think about this and try to explain. You both aren't just regular guys. People have heard of you. People think you're unique and above the rest. When they asked me to be in a movie with Gerry, I was absolutely thrilled to death. If someone had asked me if I wanted to meet you, and for some reason I believed that you existed, then I'd be equally thrilled. And you both have your good and bad points. He has a few habits I don't really like and you have more serious flaws. But somehow I can look over them for both of you because you and Gerry are just that overwhelming to be around."

"You certainly don't act overwhelmed…" Erik noted.

"It doesn't mean I'm not. Ok…I'll put it into perspective for you. You know how you used to feel in Christine's presence? Like 'Oh my God, I'm actually talking to this person right now?' Multiply that by a million and you'll have a slight glimpse of what I'm talking about."

"Oh, I think you underestimate my feelings when I'm around—"

_Knock knock. _

When Erik didn't immediately get up, Emmy nudged him.

"It's your door."

"Oh. Right," he said, quickly shuffling to open it.

_Ah, just the person I'd most HATE to see right now…it is so strange to see him out of costume with such short hair…it helps me not hate him so much…and Meg's here too, apparently. Wait, not Meg…what is that girl's name…Emmy only mentioned it once…damn…_

"Hello…" he said hesitantly when the blonde waved at him.

"We're going to dinner tonight—most of the cast, I mean. And Joel and Andrew, of course," said Patrick cooly. Whatever-her-name-was nodded.

"Yeah, it's this Italian place further into London," she said cheerily. "We're just following each other there."

By this time, Emmy was beside Erik, looking excited. "Oh good, we'll be there, right Gerry?"

A little too eagerly, he replied, "Yeah, yeah, we would love to come."

"Oh Emmy, we were wondering where you were," said the girl, who then gave the brunette a mischievous smile. "I should have known you'd be hanging around here…"

"What time is it going to be at?" Emmy asked, looking down worriedly at her far too casual T-shirt and sweatpants attire.

"Well, we're all kind of getting ready to go right now," Patrick replied. "It's not really that fancy, you don't have to dress up…much.."

"Yeah, I know, I'm not going like this," she laughed in response.

"I'm sure they won't throw you out," he said with a smile as he started to turn to leave. "See you there, then."

The blonde followed him, then turned back to Emmy, joking, "What he means is he'll be getting his carriage and you have two minutes, Little Lotte."

"Yeah, what she said!"

After giving them another smile and wave, Emmy closed the door. Slowly, she exhaled, then looked at Erik. Immediately, she groaned and started tugging off his costume jacket.

"Why are you still wearing that…and why didn't I notice it?"

"As much as I love the fact that you're undressing me right now, I am capable of doing it myself, you know."

Emmy tried to think up a good comeback, but her face was already red. So she just sighed and headed towards the door.

"Fine, I'm going to my trailer to change. Don't step out in anything too ridiculous."

Ten minutes later, she came back, looking nice but not overdressed in a flowy, pastel shirt and dark wash jeans. After knocking on the door twice, she stepped back and waited to see what Erik ended up doing to himself.

"Ah, there you are. I thought you would take a much briefer time dressing than I would," he greeted her when he opened the door. Emmy had no choice but to slap her palm to her forehead.

"What? Is this not casual enough?"

"You're still in the costume, you just took off the cuffs and cravat."

"No, I'm not! These are clothes I found in Gerry's closet. See?" Erik defended, turning in all directions as if this would make Emmy see the difference. She sighed and stepped into the trailer, once again pulling off his jacket like he was a stubborn child who refused to take off a Batman costume.

"Ok, but it looks the same. It's still a black suit. Only with a vest. And no tie…"

Erik rolled his eyes. "Fine, you shall be my official dresser as well as tour guide and stand-in mother…"

"That's what happens when you're dealing with a man whose fashion sense consists of wearing black, black, and more black," Emmy teased, turning to Gerry's closets and searching through them to find something decent.

"It's the color of power! And seriousness! And class, and respect, and everything else I wish people to see in myself."

"Well, you can still wear it, just not head to toe…ugh, he has no khakis or anything…I'm sorry, but you're going to have to tolerate jeans for one ni—Oh."

Emmy turned around with an armful of clothes to find that Erik had already rid himself of the top half of the ones he had been wearing. At the look on Emmy's face, he sighed in frustration and turned his back on her.

"It appears I've made yet _another_ social blunder…"

"No, no, chests are totally fine…I've seen them before, believe me," Emmy assured him hurriedly, hoping she didn't offend him. "I was just staring because I didn't expect it and, well, it's nice."

"Ha!"

"It is!" she insisted (ironically, she was also throwing him a shirt at the same time.) He held the plain black t-shirt in front of him, looking at it critically before pulling it over his head.

"Won't it be getting cold here?"

"Yeah…I'm still not used to British weather. Here, you'll like this," said Emmy, tossing him Gerry's black leather jacket.

"Why did you think I would like this?" he asked suspiciously.

"Because it's just about the darkest, most manly thing a guy can wear."

Apparently approving of this, he pulled it on then looked at himself. "See, I look completely fine covered in black…those horrid jeans aren't necessary to appear modern…"

"Not really."

"Emmy. Please."

It was impossible to resist the combination of Erik's pleading in Gerry's body, so Emmy reluctantly allowed him to walk out the door like that. She lead him to her car and they waited for someone to follow to the restaurant. Once the train of cars began to move, Erik delighted himself by playing around with the radio, flipping stations every ten seconds—the entire way there.

Once parked, Emmy turned off the car and turned to Erik. "Remember, don't speak unless spoken to, or unless you have a truly genius yet Gerry-like thing to say. Try to say more casual stuff like 'yeah' and 'ok' rather than 'oh-ho good sir, indeed I do approve of this fine dining!'"

"I do NOT speak like that."

Emmy laughed at him briefly and said, "Well, you're pretty close. Just make it more dumb sounding, ok? But don't exaggerate it, the last thing we need is for you to act like an illiterate redneck..."

"What on earth is a red—"

Suddenly there was a small knock on the window, made by Ciaran Hinds (who played Firmin). When Emmy rolled down her window, the man joked, "Hey, aren't you too young to be driving?"

"Nah, I've been driving for about a year now," Emmy responded politely.

"Ah, well still, you're a brave man, Gerry!" said Ciaran, giving him a wave. Erik waved back mechanically. At this point, Emmy opened her door and stepped out of the car, which Erik did as well before following her down the street with Ciaran. Pretty soon, Jennifer Ellison (Meg) and Patrick found them.

"You'd think that we'd be able to get closer parking than this," Jennifer said after immediately gravitating towards Emmy, leaving Patrick and Erik nothing to do besides talk to eachother.

"I saw she drove you here. Nice of you to let her, but how shaky are you now?" Patrick asked jokingly after about a minute of walking.

"Not at all, she's a rather skilled driver."

"Oh, well good. I figured she was. She's 'rather skilled' in everything else too, it seems."

Erik went over his modernized vocabulary in his head before responding. "Yeah, I don't think I've seen her do anything poorly."

"I know…oh, are you coming to watch them crash the chandelier tomorrow? It's only a one-time thing for this, you know. For some reason they had to make it out of actual glass instead of just plastic so they could do it again if they messed up…"

"Maybe they wanted it to look especially realistic," Erik suggested. By this time, the gang of actors was in front of the restaurant, a red neon light spelling out _Angelo's _illuminating their faces.

"Yeah, that was probably it."

As they started to file into the restaurant, Erik quickly made his way back next to Emmy, praying he wouldn't have to talk to Patrick again.

**AN: Here's some fun facts about the movie you may or may not have known! **

**Kiera Knightly auditioned for the role of Christine, Anne Hathaway was considered for the role (but was terrified of singing at that point and was doing the sequel to Princess Diaries) **

**John Travolta and Antonio Banderas both prepared for the role of the Phantom (you can find Antonio Banderas singing 'Music of the Night' on YouTube. It's dreadful). All of them were rejected simply because they had baggage attached to their names and Joel wanted to bring out fairly unknown or less popular actors. Oh, and MEAT LOAF of all people was considered for the Phantom. What…?**

**Charlotte Church was rejected for a much more cruel reason—her weight. And Katie Holmes was rejected because of her age. **

**As skinny as Emmy Rossum already is naturally, she was made to look even skinnier so to fit into Christine's corset. Here's some rather disturbing Emmy quotes about it. " I mean, the corset - for six months, five days a week, 16 hours a day - it physically changed my shape. I think my rib cage is much smaller than it ordinarily would have been because it deformed me at a crucial point in my growing - but it's all good!" and "We prerecorded all the music because, with the corset, you could not sing. And I didn't eat anything all day - just ice cream, because it melted and slid down my esophagus." **

**The first time Andrew considered doing a film version, Michael Jackson wanted the role of the Phantom.**

**In April 2004 an audience of the stage version of Phantom in London was asked to stay behind at the end and record the sound effects for the chandelier crash in the movie.**

**I mentioned this earlier, but neither Gerry nor Emmy had ever seen the play before filming (and were asked not to watch it.) **

**Emmy Rossum****almost didn't get the part because her mother didn't want her to miss her family reunion. **

**Patrick did his own stunts. **

**Joel couldn't understand hardly anything Jennifer Ellison said, and Emmy had trouble with it as well.**

**Gerry****had a string tied just below his eye to cause it to appear more deformed when pulled down. Cast members would often tug on it as a joke between takes.**

**The Christine mannequin was actually Emmy with waxy makeup on because their first attempt at the doll didn't look like her at all. The half mask sold for 6,450 euros on eBay.**

**The (utter fail at) the drowning scene with Patrick was supposed to be an allusion to flooding the torture chamber in the Leroux novel.**

**I don't know which song was first, but the tune that plays when Christine is going to the graveyard at first in the movie is the same tune of 'Beneath a Moonless Sky' in **_**Love Never Dies.**_

**Ramin Karimloo**** played Christine's father briefly in the movie.**** He became the first actor to have played all 3 of Christine's loves: her father in the movie version, and both Raoul and the Phantom on stage. (He was so good….too bad he went on to do **_**LOVE NEVER DIES!**_** Which Gerry, unfortunately, attended the opening night and said it was 'cool'…Gerry, you idiot. At least he didn't try out for the role.)**

**Ah, and I just found out that I messed up the order of filming apparently because the first scene that Gerry filmed was 'Past the Point of No Return', but come on, I didn't know and I wanted to save best for last ;)**


	13. What Happens When Erik Gets Drunk

**AN: I am back! Not only was my vacation Potter-filled (my other, less serious love) but I found a life size statue of Lon Chaney after the unmasking in the silent movie! I definitely took pictures. Also, there was a mask there. Not sure if it was the one used in the movie, but it looked just like it. **

**CHAPTER WHATEVER IT IS! **

The sting from Christine's slap had long since worn off but the shock from it was still sinking in. Gerry was equally amazed at how quickly she could walk away, and was struggling to keep up while carrying stolen food.

"Slow down! Come on, it wasn't like I even insulted you…Christine, come back! Please?" he panted, legs burning after so much power-walking.

"I'm going to find Raoul," she said firmly. Gerry's eyes widened.

"No, no, no, trust me, you do NOT want to do that…"

"Why not?" she demanded, not looking back.

"Because…I need you here to help me and if I get lost and starve to death or something, you'll be SO upset…"

"I doubt it."

Appalled, Gerry sped up. "I'm better than Erik, at least, and you were never this unforgiving to—"

"He was never this RUDE to me!" she huffed as she turned a corner sharply.

"I'm SORRY, ok? Honey—" At this, she abruptly stopped.

"What did you call me?"

Gerry, catching his breath, replied, "Sorry, I'm just used to calling women that when I'm chasing them down apologizing…"

"This happens often?" Christine mused as she crossed her arms.

"Well, occasionally."

"I suggest you look into what you're doing wrong."

Gerry just sighed. After a moment of looking at him, Christine turned to walk away again, but a hand on her wrist stopped her. She tried to yank it away, but he gripped tighter.

"Let go," she growled, yanking it again. He shook his head.

"Not until you stop trying to get to Raoul."

"Better than Erik, you say? You're just like him!"

"No, he kept you here because he's _obsessed _with you. I actually need you," he corrected her.

"You could have Nadir help you."

"Yeah, well, I like you better," he said curtly. Christine looked suspicious but said nothing, just glared at him. He loosened his grip but didn't let go.

"Please."

"Fine."

"Good choice," Gerry said with mock enthusiasm, letting go of her. She was still irritated.

"Where to?" she asked, rubbing her wrist.

"Here is fine."

As he said this, he promptly set the food down and seated himself on the stone floor next to it. Christine (rather reluctantly) did the same, convincing herself that she was hungry anyway. After a minute of silent eating, Gerry wondered aloud, "How do you think Emmy and Erik are doing?"

Christine laughed sarcastically. "If he hasn't driven her entirely mad, she's doing quite well."

/

_Of course, _thought Erik, staring stonily in front of him when he managed to have Patrick sitting between him and Emmy, with Minnie Driver on his other side.

_Stuck between the two people I hated most in my own life—and one of them hardly acts any different than who he's playing. Oh, just look at him, making advances on a 'minor'…_

(Actually, all Patrick was doing was making menu suggestions for Emmy.) Quickly looking back at his empty plate when Emmy caught him glaring at them, Erik started thinking about his own world.

_Poor Christine, from what Emmy said, Gerry must be throwing himself at her most inappropriately. And in MY body! She must think I'm more undone than she previously believed..unless he told her and she believed him. Oh no—what if she prefers him to me? What if she even fancies him? No…impossible. Even though his real face is perfect, the one he has now is not…but perhaps, if I ever do return—if I choose to—he might change her opinion of ME. Emmy said they filmed a scene about my time at the fair…Christine never knew about that. But Gerry does. Maybe he will tell her and she will understand me at last._

"Gerard?"

"Hm?"

Erik was shaken out of his thoughts by a pleasant British voice—strangely, coming from the Carlotta look-alike.

_Since when does she sound decent?_

"Miranda was asking you a question," said Minnie, motioning to the Madame Giry actresss, who smiled subtly.

"I was just asking how you and Emmy are getting along."

Minnie appeared as if she found this a strange question, but just looked at Erik for his answer.

"Um…we're doing quite well, I believe."

A look of surprise passed over both women's faces when they heard him speak, but more so on Minnie, who said, "You sound different…"

Erik quickly explained. "Yeah, I decided to lose my accent..for the role, you know."

"Maybe Jennifer should do the same," Minnie joked. Realizing Jennifer must be Meg—the actress with a really thick Liverpool accent—Erik smiled and nodded. Then he turned to Miranda.

"Why did you ask about Emmy and me?"

"You just seem like you're becoming good friends," said the older woman smoothly.

"They've been close this whole time, haven't they?" asked the Carlotta actress, confused.

"Well, yes, I suppose so. Just a bit closer now."

At this, Miranda gave Erik a mysterious smile then, and he tensed up, feeling strange. It was almost as if she knew he wasn't actually Gerry.

_No. That's absurd, _he shrugged it off.

"I bet you're looking forward to the Don Juan scene coming up," said Minnie mischievously. Putting on his most Gerry-like demeanor, Erik grinned and nodded vigorously.

"Oh yeah. That's going to be loads of fun."

Somehow, the guy who played Piangi invited himself into the conversation, pointing at Erik with a joking smile.

"He gets to kill me!"

It was all Erik could do to NOT kill him right then. That man annoyed him to no end. Soon, the waiter came around to pour their glasses with wine and everyone got to ordering. Erik picked something random. The table was quiet until a darkhaired man whom Erik didn't know stood with his glass raised.

"A toast," he declared, "To a fantastic cast and crew!"

"And to a great production," Joel added, also toasting, which everyone else did as well. With this, they all took a good drink of wine together. Erik found it funny tasting, and panicked internally for a moment before realizing it must be due to the difference in location, time, and production of the wine. After a few sips, he figured it was rather good.

The evening passed slowly, with lots of friendly exchanges and small talk, then they finally received their meals. Erik had no idea what he had ordered, except that it was entirely covered in cheese. Whatever it was, it tasted good enough for him to scarf down with his new ravenous appetite. Unfortunately, he had to wait quite a while for everyone else to finish, which was excruciatingly boring.

Before he knew it, he had lost count of how many drinks he'd had.

Only then did someone ask if he was even supposed to be drinking.

"He's fine, he's been sober long enough now to handle it," Emmy said quickly, but unsurely. Rolling his head in her direction, Erik squinted, trying to focus.

"Christine?"

"Wow, he's really gone!" said someone else. Patrick put his hand on Erik's shoulder, trying to get a look at his face to see just how drunk he was.

"You okay?"

Erik thought he had violently shoved his rival away, but all he actually did was weakly shake the hand off his shoulder and shift a few inches back.

_I think…yes, I'm supposed to…I'm Gerry…right…all this…not even real…_

In a new state of calm, Erik chuckled quietly, his eyes half closed.

"I'm completely, utterly…splendid!"

All eyes were on him now—all twenty two pairs.

"Did you notice him drinking that much?"

"Nope, did you?"

Emmy stood up and gently pulled Erik to his feet.

"I think I'll drive him back.."

"No, no, I'm fine," he insisted, almost sounding sober for a moment before he staggered.

"Just let him stay, he's not doing any harm," Joel said, dismissively waving for Emmy to sit down. Obedient but begrudging, she let Erik go and sat back down. It took him a while to do the same.

The next time the waiter came around with the wine, Patrick sent him back.

"When we leave, get him some coffee," he told Emmy. "If you're comfortable driving with him like this, I mean…"

"Oh yeah, I'm fine."

"You sure?"

"The lady said she was fine, monsieur," Erik suddenly blurted, pointing his fork at Patrick threateningly. The other man couldn't help but burst out laughing, and pretty soon, others were laughing too.

"I'm serious!" Erik persisted, attempting to stab Patrick with the silver utensil, but only jabbing at the air. After looking at Emmy with a grin, Patrick played along, holding his hands up in surrender.

"You win, sir, I give up!" he said dramatically, inducing more chuckles. Erik slowly nodded, slurring, "That's right…you just…order your fine horses and….get the hell outa…out of, um…wherever this is!"

The table exploded into laughter.

"I challenge you to a duel!" Patrick declared, holding up his own fork. Emmy protested.

"Don't tease him, Patrick, he doesn't know what's going on…"

"No, no, I want to see this!" Andrew said, surprising everyone as he leaned forward chanting, "Gerry, Gerry, Gerry!"

Erik started randomly stabbing the air with his fork, occasionally being blocked by a very entertained Patrick.

After a few 'clashes' (more like 'ting!'s) and cutting insults from Erik (such as "you insolent little dandy") Patrick finally pointed his tiny weapon at Erik's heart.

"Not again!" whined the intoxicated man. This time, even Emmy giggled.

"Yes, I win again, fiend!" Patrick said smugly, then put an arm around Emmy. "Christine shall always choose me."

As funny as this was, Emmy was very concerned that Erik would actually lose it and jump on Patrick, so she decided to do something drastic: play along.

"Wait!"

The table audience was totally immersed in the scene before them by this point. Erik perked up at Emmy's voice.

Getting over her embarrassment, the actress turned to Patrick and dramatically declared her love for the Phantom.

"Oh, is this the part where I become abusive so he seems like the good guy?" Patrick asked, referencing bad Lifetime movies he had seen.

(Unknown to anyone else, Andrew Lloyd Webber took note of this brilliant idea.)

"No, this is the part where I decide I have a thing for murderous stalkers," Emmy smirked, thinking back to the Argento version of Phantom that Erik made her watch with him.

"Oh no! Christine has left me! I simply…can't go on!" Patrick mock-sobbed, then tragically 'stabbed' himself with his own fork and sank in his chair, playing dead. Emmy leaned over him towards Erik, who happily did the same, and she embraced him.

There was a simultaneous "Aww.." then a little applause. Emmy bowed, as did Patrick when he rose back up. As for Erik, he snuck Patrick's fork away and stared at it intently, as if trying to understand it's hidden meaning.

"Hey…this isn't a sword!"


	14. BOOM

**AN: Thanks for the reviews! Glad I didn't piss off too many LND fans with that….As for posting pictures of the Lon Chaney statue, I would, but I have no idea how to do that on here. **

CHAPTER 14

Emmy and Erik were parked outside of McDonald's after she had bought him some coffee from the drive-thru. Upon learning that he had never had coffee before, Emmy made sure to get a sugar packed, icy frappe.

"This is a dessert…not a beverage…" he said after taking a sip. "And I believe coffee is supposed to be hot."

"I didn't want you to spill it and burn your face off. That would just be depressing after you've gone through dimensions to get a normal one," said Emmy dully.

Glaring with both hands wrapped around the plastic cup, Erik continued sipping on the straw.

"I wouldn't spill it…" he muttered. Just as he said it, the cup slipped from his hands and he almost dropped it, but Emmy caught it. She handed it back to him.

"See, your reflexes are slower than mine. You're still drunk."

"Fine…I'll keep drinking this liquefied sugar," said Erik begrudgingly, sinking in his seat and sucking on the straw.

"Oh lord…I forgot. When you do get sober, you'll be so jacked up on sugar and caffeine you won't be able to sleep," Emmy groaned. Erik shifted his eyes towards her then grinned maniacally.

"I'm sure I could find something to occupy myself with…"

Emmy shoved him and he snickered. Folding her arms, she huffed and turned away.

"I can't believe I'm actually chauffeuring a drunken fictional character stuck in a Scottish actor's body."

Holding up a finger pointedly, Erik reminded her, "An _attractive _Scottish actor's body!"

Still looking out of the window watching people go in and out of the restaurant, Emmy admitted, "Yes, that's true."

After swallowing the last gulp of sweet, coffee flavored ice, Erik put it in the cupholder silently and shifted closer to Emmy's side of the car (as stealthily as he could in his state).

"So you COULD help occupy me?" he said as he got right next to her ear. Jerking around to face him, Emmy didn't know whether to laugh or smack him again.

"If you weren't buzzed right now…"

"Hmm? It's not the intoxication from the wine," he hummed mysteriously, inching closer again.

"Uh…I think it is, Erik. I'm a stupid American teenager from the future, remember? I just happen to look like Christine," Emmy reminded him.

He rolled his eyes. He knew who she was. Why didn't she believe him?

"But Emmyyyy…." He whined, and she couldn't help but smile, thinking the awkward part was over. And just then, he suddenly pulled her face towards him and crashed his lips on hers.

/

"Whoa."

"What?"

Gerry patted his hand over his chest for a second, breathing raggedly. "I felt something."

Christine's eyes widened a little. "I thought it was just me…"

Gerry noticed she was breathing strangely too. The feeling was fading away now, and he tried to describe it. "It was like something hit me in the gut then played basketball with my heart or something…you know, bounced it on the ground."

"Yes…same feeling."

Thinking a moment, he came up with an idea.

"Maybe something's happening with our souls—like Erik's trying to get back in his body…but Emmy has to follow him and be in yours!"

Christine gulped nervously, considering that possibility. She didn't want to swap bodies with her future doppelganger!

"Wait—maybe they figured out their side of swapping back…"

"You mean he learned his lesson but I haven't yet?" asked Gerry.

"Yes, or they…em…kissed," said Christine, surprised at herself for being uncomfortable with the idea. Gerry didn't particularly like it either.

"Well, we could give it a shot," he said casually.

"You mean kiss?"

"Sure, why not?"

Christine looked down unsurely, then sighed and moved closer to Gerry with the reluctance of a child about to get an injection from a doctor.

"Alright, just do it."

He started to lean in, but then stopped. "If it works, can I come back and visit sometime?"

"Gerry…"

"Can I?"

"Yes, if it's alright with Erik, sure. It's been lovely," said Christine softly, then Gerry, with a last smile, closed his eyes and kissed her.

When he opened them, he didn't know what to expect exactly, but he figured it would be something exciting. Instead, nothing had happened.

"Well then."

Christine shifted uncomfortably away from him, biting her lip. It was unsettling to her that she had somewhat enjoyed that kiss. She told herself it was only because Gerry was a rather experienced and skilled kisser.

_Yes, that's all it was. He's good at it._

"What do you want from me?" Gerry shouted suddenly at the ceiling, as if yelling at God—or whatever had put him there.

"It has to be at the same time, perhaps," Christine guessed. "Let's wait until they do it again."

"Or learn the lesson," he added.

They sat in silence, thinking and waiting for a torturously long minute.

"Yeah…" Gerry interrupted the silence finally, "We need the foreign guy."

/

Emmy felt like she was deep underwater, fighting to get to the surface while floating suspended in time. There was a strange mix of emotions, rational thought, and knee-jerk reactions all going on in her mind at the same time as Erik forced a less-than-graceful kiss on her. By the time she shoved him off and scolded him, she felt another heart pounding, breathless sensation, but she passed it off as shock.

Erik felt it too, but passed it off as excited joy.

Neither of them mentioned it.

"Erik—I know you're still not right in the head so I won't blame you for that when you sober up, but you CAN'T do that, ok? It's not right," Emmy said, throwing each word at him to make sure he understood. Erik shook his head.

"Why not?"

Emmy sighed. "Because. You'll regret it later and here, I'm considered a child and you're an adult—"

"You aren't a child!" Erik chuckled, leaning back in his seat and looking over her. "You're a beautiful grown woman….about at your marrying age…"

"Not HERE, I'm not," she insisted.

"Strange…'children' such as yourselves bare so much skin and look just like 'adults' yet expect not to be approached…"

Emmy was taken aback by this. It was sort of true…but it didn't justify such an inappropriate situation!

"I'm driving you back," she said simply, and did just that, ignoring Erik's mutterings. When they arrived at the studio parking lot, Emmy shuffled Erik through the orange glow of sodium vapor lights ("Are those candles? No? Then why are they orange like that?") to his trailer. Once inside the tiny bedroom, he started begging Emmy to stay with him. She just headed to the door.

Still a little unsteady, he pulled her back in. At the sudden yank, she fell against his chest and stumbled back.

"Pleeeaasse? I shall be very well behaved, I promise…" he said, sweetly as he could. "Erik promises he won't kiss you again."

"Oh God, now you're talking in third person.."

"Erik is doing what with a third person?"

Covering her mouth, Emmy tried her best not to laugh but ended up doing a strange little snort. Erik cocked his head, wondering what on earth was the matter with her.

"Ok, ok," she gasped, composing herself. "I can't stay. I need sleep and if I fall asleep here and people know…"

Erik flopped on the bed and lifted a finger to his lips.

"Erik is very good at keeping secrets…Erik knows how to hide Emmy in his room!"

Sighing, she crossed her arms and looked at him dully.

"And how is that?"

He smiled dreamily. "Emmy tells people she got up early to visit him!"

_That could work…wait, why do I even want to stay? Why am I considering it in the first place? I mean, it's hard to say no to him anyway, but this is absurd! What…no, I'm not staying, I'm not—_

"If you talk normally, I'll stay."

Erik gasped in delight and jumped to his feet on the bed. When the springs bounced, he staggered and fell back, making the bed squeak. He chuckled like an entertained kid and got up to do it again. He did this for a while and Emmy watched, laughing until he finally stopped, rolling to face her with his arms outstretched pitifully. She walked over and sat on the bed next to him. He hugged her waist.

"Would you sing for me?" he asked as he let his eyes shut, finally feeling drowsy. She smiled a little.

"What do you want me to sing?"

Erik yawned. "Anything."

After thinking a moment, Emmy started humming 'Angel of Music'. A smile spread across his face as he recognized the tune. As she began to sing softly, she changed it to 'Think of Me' and 'Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again'. Basically, it turned into a Phantom medley. And Erik loved it, of course. Soon, he was asleep, and Emmy went back to her own trailer quietly.


	15. Nadir the Therapist

**AN: Thanks for the reviews!**

CHAPTER 15

"What's something you hide from people?"

"Um…well, I'm more emotional that most people realize. They've thought I was happy in the most miserable times of my life, so…"

"Yes, and how do you treat people generally?"

"I'm nice to them if they're nice to me, which they usually are."

"And women?"

"What about them?"

"Well, you've been transported to the life of a man who's romantic life is rather…dramatic. Your lesson might have to do with something of that nature. Just tell me how you feel about women or love or whatever you associate with those things."

Nadir was the perfect therapist. The only things he was missing was a notepad and a brown leather couch for Gerry to lie on. They were in an empty office at the opera, which Christine and Gerry discovered a trapdoor entrance to. Later, they found the Persian.

"Well, if I have any problem, it's that I like them too much."

"What kinds of women are you drawn to?" Khan asked calmly, folding his hands. Gerry shrugged.

"I don't know, anyone I find attractive. Blondes, brunettes, thin, curvy, doesn't really matter to me."

"I meant the qualities of the personality," said Nadir.

"Oh. Hm…a sense of humor is great, everyone says that, but I'd rather be able to make her laugh than the other way around. Chicks who make me laugh usually end up as just friends with me. I don't like high maintenance after the first few dates but total pushovers aren't my type either. Independence is great…but I like knowing I'm needed. Ah, passion, lots of that! I like some drama. But not too much—"

"It seems you're extremely particular," Nadir interrupted. "Yet don't know what you want in the long term."

Gerry felt like he was being studied. "Yeah, maybe. What's wrong with that?"

"What is a common age in your time to be thinking about marriage?"

"You people are obsessed with marriage, aren't you?"

Christine sighed. "Answer him."

"Ok, well anywhere from early twenties to forties, maybe," guessed Gerry.

"So you're in your prime to be thinking about that….what are your thoughts on it?"

"I don't really have any. Never had to think about it, aside from my parent's divorce. I never met anyone I could see as someone I'd want to spend my life with—at least not since I was really young and EVERY girl I was lucky enough to date was 'the one'…So I just keep it casual, mostly."

"So how many casual encounters have you had?"

"Oh, way too many to count, definitely," Gerry laughed. Christine spoke up at this.

"What do you mean, casual encounters?"

Nadir looked down to his hands, looking a little discomforted. "Nights spent with women he is hardly acquainted with."

Gerry blinked. "Ohhh, one night stands…I thought you meant just dates or short term girlfriends. Yeah, I only had a few of those in college. Not that many."

Nadir obviously disapproved but said nothing about it. Christine didn't appear too surprised.

"Perhaps you should retreat back into your youth a little," Nadir suggested. Glancing at Christine, Gerry saw she had the same barely-there smile. He sighed, a little frustrated since he didn't see the point of this.

"And how exactly do I do that?"

Nadir nodded towards Christine. "You can practice with her."

/

Emmy felt accomplished when she arrived early to watch the chandelier crash without anyone asking her about the 'Gerry' situation or acting strangely because they knew where she had been last night (however briefly it was.)

Patrick approached her soon, friendly as always. After some relaxed small talk about the scene, he asked, "So, how's Gerry doing? Is he here?"

"No, not yet. He's pretty good. He was sobering up last night."

"Mmhm…"

Emmy frowned, noticing Patrick's skeptical, judging expression.

"What?"

Patrick glanced around quickly before leaning in and whispering, "I heard."

Heart jolting, Emmy snapped, "Heard what?"

"You know."

"No, Patrick, I really don't."

He rolled his eyes and sighed irritably. "I heard you two together. You know, trailers aren't exactly soundproof, and they tend to shake when—"

"WHAT?"

"Emmy, it's hardly legal! I wouldn't care if he was your own age—"

Suddenly, Emmy realized what he actually heard.

"Wait! No—I get it now! You heard him jumping on the bed…."

"Jumping…on the bed?" he repeated, obviously not believing her. "A grown man?"

'He was drunk, Patrick."

He thought a second then shrugged. "Good point."

The tough part over, Emmy leaned against the wall and laughed.

"I can't believe you thought…me and him…oh wow."

"I could hardly believe it either," said the actor, shaking his head as if trying to knock the ugly thought out of his brain.

Before she could think about her next words, Emmy blurted out, "He did kiss me though."

Patrick turned to look at her slowly, with an expression on his face like the calm before the storm. "What?"

Swallowing, Emmy looked down at her hands, quickly explaining. "Well, again, he was drunk. We were in the parking lot and he just randomly did it. I pushed him off and told him he couldn't do that and he didn't try to anymore."

Nodding slowly, Patrick crossed his arms. "Do you have any idea why he felt compelled to kiss you?"

"No idea, like I said, it was random."

He exhaled and looked to the side. "Weird."

"Yeah," Emmy agreed, hoping he would still believe her. A moment later, Erik popped up beside Emmy, in the same clothes he slept in. He looked like he definitely had one hell of a hangover.

"Hi Gerry. Had fun?" Patrick said with a forced smile.

"I don't remember if I did or not," said Erik.

"Really?"

"No," Erik smirked. "I remember. We had a duel. With…spoons?"

"Forks, actually," nodded Patrick. He looked slightly less uptight now.

Erik turned and looked around the huge auditorium set, admiring the sight of the grand, crystal chandelier sparkling in the lights all around the room. He had grown to like it a lot over the years of 'haunting' the opera. It was a pity he had to destroy it. But it had to be done.

"What about _Don Juan?_" Erik suddenly realized. "Won't they show the chandelier in that scene?"

"Um…" Emmy thought. "No, actually, I don't think so."

"What about the audience members then?"

Emmy and Patrick simultaneously gave Erik an 'are-you-freaking-kidding-me?' look. He felt stupid, but didn't know why. Finally, Emmy explained.

"They don't film the crashing with people actually under it, Gerry."

Erik rubbed his head, purposely exaggerating his hangover. "Sorry, my mind is still a little…off."

The other man nodded in understanding. Joel's voice started to echo from speakers in the auditorium, and everyone turned to listen.

"Alright, do I have my firemen? Yes, ok, just stand behind the curtain right there…no, not the one that catches fire! Are the pyros set? Ok, quiet on the set!"

Joel's voice was the last to be heard, as people had already quieted. Conceding this point, Joel nodded to the cameramen and then the crew above the chandelier, who counted down.

"Five! Four! Three…two….ONE!"

The chandelier came down at an angle, moving much slower than Erik remembered. It crashed loudly enough though, and flames burst up around the glittering broken glass, dancing over to the curtain and climbing up the crimson velvet fabric. Before it did any real damage, men with fire extinguishers rushed out to put out the fire.

"Good, excellent. Looked great from here, guys," said Joel pleasedly, then looked around. "Let's get our extras in here for the other shots now..oh, and Tommy, get me my coffee, will you?"

"Guess we're done here," Patrick said, rubbing his hands together. "That was kind of interesting, huh?"

"Yeah," Emmy agreed. (Erik thought the real crash was much more fun. People screaming in fear added to the effect.)

"See you later, Gerry," said Patrick. He headed out the door. Emmy turned to Erik, about to speak, but then they heard Joel.

"Gerry! Emmy! Come here, I need you."

They approached Joel, who looked at them with his usual half-closed eyes and tight smile.

"So Gerry, I know I keep telling you this while filming, so I'll tell you now instead—make it sexy tomorrow, kay? You too, Emmy."

"Sexy?" Erik wondered, then coughed and nodded. "Right. I know."

"Good," Joel affirmed. "And uh…take it easy on the booze. In fact, don't drink within the next 24 hours or more at least."

"Yes sir."

Joel turned to Emmy and smiled genuinely. "Emmy, darling, you've been wonderful. A big help, especially with taking care of our Phantom…"

Emmy beamed and Joel continued. "But tomorrow, play up the whole theme of innocence and womanhood and sexual awakening stuff we talked about. You've been great with the innocent part, but throw in some passion at your part of the song. Like try to shock us with it. Just don't jump Gerry, we don't need to see THAT much…."

Emmy chuckled. "Ok, got it."

Joel waved them off. "Ok, class dismissed."

As they walked off together, Erik finally asked Emmy, "What does sexy mean?"


	16. A Humiliation Worse Than Unmasking

**AN: The humiliation Erik has to endure as far as his wardrobe for Point of No Return did indeed actually happen to poor Gerry. Good thing it did, because it's quite amusing. And no, I can't find anything on the internet about it anymore but I KNOW I saw it somewhere a few years ago and laughed myself to tears. **

**Links won't cooperate but go to Gerry's page on the website uncyclopedia. Skip to the Phantom bit of this page and it's actually kind of funny, at least if you're like me and don't care for Michael Crawford's voice one bit, or at least if you can take a joke. **

CHAPTER 16

Nadir made Gerry and Christine face each other as he counseled the actor.

"Take this lovely young woman for example. She has TWO suitors wishing for her hand in marriage. She's very pretty, obviously, and is kind and talented as well. Now, as wonderful as this is, I'm sure you've met someone somewhere with all of these qualities. What could have possibly been so terrible with that person that you had to move on?"

Gerry groaned. This was so stupid.

"I just didn't have anything in common with one, and another bored me to death. The rest didn't like me enough."

Nadir nodded. "So what can you find wrong with Christine?"

"You're going to make me insult her?"

"Not insult her, point out things that would make you not want to have a decent relationship with her. I'm analyzing you, not her," Nadir said bluntly. The mentioned woman squirmed in her seat, preparing for a chain of cutting remarks, or at least some sarcasm.

Gerry frowned, thinking.

"Well…she's kind of held back, but that's just this society and she's trying to be more adventurous…she's stubborn, but at least she stands firm in her own beliefs—even when they're insane, like the Angel of Music for example…" he smirked. At Christine's glare, he quickly added, "But she knows better now, and I can see how a little girl would fall for something like that…"

"So all of these faults are ultimately overruled?" Nadir pointed out, looking rather pleased with himself.

"Yeah, I guess so."

Gerry and Christine expected Nadir to reveal what the lesson was and magically swap Gerry back into his own body, but the Persian simply smiled and stepped towards the door.

"That is all. If you'll excuse me, I have business to attend to."

Before either of them could protest, he was gone. Gerry frowned, trying to figure what the hell that was all about. Christine did the same, but neither came to any conclusion. After a long pause, they went back through the trapdoor, Gerry following Christine.

"So where to now? "

"Madame Giry."

/

It was the morning before filming Don Juan, and as usual, about two hundred thirty seven people were rushing around backstage and on set, putting up props and preparing actors. In one of the many dressing rooms, Emmy could be heard giggling and Erik was panicking.

"You HAVE to be joking. Emmy, please tell me you're joking!"

She could hardly breathe from her laughing, holding up the offending objects to him. "Seriously…haha…they want you to wear this tomorrow! I have…no idea why!"

"Who on earth is even going to be looking at my…" Erik trailed off, still horrified at the idea. Emmy was almost turning purple by this point.

"Joel…insists on sexiness…I suppose he finds that…sexy!"

"Why, is he homosexual?"

Emmy keeled over, holding a hand over her mouth. "Maybe!"

Erik rolled his eyes and sighed, holding up the pads distastefully. "I can't believe I have to actually wear these…"

Taking a deep breath, Emmy forced out some words before she laughed again. "Apparently, Gerry's butt is too flat for Joel's tastes!"

Erik slapped his palm against his forehead and groaned. This had to have been a form of torture at some point in history. After a few minutes of oxygen deprivation, Emmy's uncontrollable giggling ceased—somewhat.

"I'm not doing it," he insisted, shaking his head firmly.

"You have to, Erik."

"No. I'm not."

Emmy sighed and thought a moment. "Can I bribe you into it?"

Narrowing his eyes, Erik asked, "What bribe?"

Emmy looked down, trying to come up with something. Finally, she just shrugged. "Whatever you'd like, I guess. Name something."

"I honestly cannot think of anything that would make me consent to doing this to myself."

With an impatient sigh, Emmy stepped closer and gave him a quick, chaste kiss on the cheek.

"Fine, I'll do it."

With a triumphant smile, Emmy stepped back, making a mental note to do that anytime Erik was being difficult. Still, the look on his face was as depressing as a humane society commercial.

"I'd better go change," she finally said, stepping out the door and shuffling through the crammed corridor to her own dressing room. After an hour of having her costume and wig adjusted, being made up (and ending up washing powder out from her eye) Emmy emerged from the dressing room, only waiting a few minutes for Erik before giving up and following the crowd out into the auditorium set.

"How many days do you think this will take to film?" she asked Jennifer upon spotting the blonde on stage. The Liverpool girl frowned, thinking.

"Oh, I don't know. A few days…maybe a week."

"A week?"

Jennifer nodded. "Yeah, we've only barely practiced the choreography and Joel is particularly interested in this scene, so he'll be more of a perfectionist than he already is."

Not thrilled about this, Emmy looked out to the red seats of the audience, trying to spot her director. All she saw were the extras, dressed in lavish Victorian costumes, and a few crew members in black T-shirts. She turned back to ask Jennifer where Schumacher was, but she had already disappeared out the studio door with the black suited _Don Juan_ dancers. With a sigh, Emmy politely made her way backstage once more.

Right as she turned a corner, she ran smack into Erik's chest. Looking up, she gave him a sheepish smile. He didn't look amused.

"Still in a bad mood because of the pads?" she asked. He just rolled his eyes and leaned against the wall with his arms tightly folded, glaring at people who passed by. Emmy moved to stand beside him.

_Can't have him going out there like this…unless Joel thinks Gerry is sexy when he's angry or something creepy like that. _

"Can I do anything to make you feel better?" she asked. He huffed.

"I doubt it."

She bit her lip, trying to think of something optimistic to say. "Well, this scene should be the most fun for you. I mean, it was one of the better moments in your life, wasn't it?"

"Yes, until it quickly turned into the most humiliating moment of my life."

"Well, we won't be getting to that today. We'll just be doing the fun parts," said Emmy cheerfully. Erik's jaw loosened a little, but he still stared unblinkingly at the wall. Figuring this was the best she could hope to work with, Emmy took his hand and tugged.

"Come on, we should be on set now."

Right before they passed through the curtains towards the stage, Andrew Lloyd Webber seemed to appear out of nowhere in front of them. He made a half circle around Erik slowly, examining him from head to toe with squinting eyes as the two leads stood still, not knowing what to do. When it seemed Andrew had drawn some sort of conclusion, he just nodded and walked off.

After a moment of awkward silence, Erik said, "What the hell was that all about?"

"No idea."

"Places in five!" someone called. Emmy turned to Erik.

"Do you remember your lines? Wait—of course you do, you did this before…."

Giving her a slightly annoyed look, he nodded and walked through the black and red curtains behind the false fire pit, apparently ready to film the "killing Piangi" shot.

_Ok, fine, be all high and mighty then, _Emmy thought, surprised that he could just walk off like that. Since when could he go anywhere without her?

After some bustling around in confusion, all the dancers were in their places, as was the Piangi actor and his midget. For what seemed like ages, they filmed and cut the overture scene of _Don Juan, _dancing quite nicely but getting cut off by Joel almost every five seconds. The same happened with shots of the audience as well as behind the curtain, with the scene where Erik killed Piangi. With all this, Emmy wondered why she even had to be here at all today. She went from tapping her foot, to sitting on the concrete counting her toes, to actually laying on the concrete trying to nap.

"Oi! Where the hell is Emmy?"

Gasping, she jumped up and ran onstage, apologizing profusely. She was greeted by various looks of distaste, annoyance, and amusement.

"It's fine, just go back and come out when the music starts," Joel droned. Nodding quickly, she did so. Not wanting to film her part over and over, she tried to put on as much emotion as possible. Unfortunately, this is what appeared to make Joel yell "Cut!".

"You aren't supposed to be actually feeling anything at this point, you're just barely acting this out to please Raoul," he explained, then turned to the cameras. "Take two."

She tried again, and surprised herself by actually getting through her lines before Erik's lines started.

_Please don't mess this up… _she silently prayed, making sure she had a satisfactory amount of surprise on her face before turning to look at Erik. Though she had seen him in costume already, she felt a strange sense of sensuality show itself in him when he appeared on stage.

_That has to be what Joel calls 'damn good acting.'_

Ever so slowly, he started to approach her with an almost predatory expression which almost made her turn red.

_Yep. Definitely sexual enough for Joel to call good acting, _Emmy thought. She joked with herself to keep from looking like a nervous fool in front of everyone. Then she realized, _Oh, right. I'm SUPPOSED to look nervous. Think Christine, think Christine…._

Adding some of Joel's beloved innocence theme to her acting, Emmy let Erik's intense stare affect her just as it was supposed to as he started to circle her. In his audience seat, Joel watched intently, quite pleased with the performance so far. Yes, this would definitely add some sex appeal to the movie.


	17. Erik the Director

**AN: Thanks for all the reviews, as usual. You guys are awesome. **

CHAPTER 17

At Gerry's insistence, he and Christine slept for a few hours before doing anything else. He had no idea how long he had been there, but he knew he was severely sleep deprived. Christine, however, seemed like she didn't require half as much rest as he did, and in her impatience to move again, she awoke him and practically dragged him along to continue their search for answers. They had been looking for the elusive Antoinette Giry for only 30 minutes, but Gerry's patience was wearing thin. He was getting really, really, REALLY tired of walking.

"Where the bloody hell is she, then?"

"I don't know, be patient!"

"You should know, since she's like your adoptive mother or something…"

"That doesn't mean I can telepathically know her location at all times," Christine snapped back. After a while, she started thinking aloud to herself. "She's not in the boxes, or backstage, or in her own room…"

"Maybe she went out or something. That is if you people have lives outside of the opera house," Gerry quipped. Christine's eyes flashed angrily at him.

"Yes, _we people _do have business other than opera. Maybe you're right. She could be out running errands. Let's wait near the main entrance so we can catch her if she comes back in."

Reluctantly, Gerry followed her as they snuck down the hallway behind the boxes, making their way as silently as possible to a balcony that looked over the grand staircases of the shiny, golden lobby. Upon spotting someone entering the opera, Christine shoved Gerry back into the hallway and covered his mouth to make sure he wouldn't make a sound of protest.

"Someone just came in," she whispered to him, then let go and glanced back out to see who it was.

It was Nadir. He had stopped in the middle of the expensive tiled floor with his hands folded together behind his back as usual, standing very still as his jade eyes slowly cast back and forth. Apparently, he was waiting for someone.

A few moments later, the very woman they had been looking for appeared from behind the foot of the staircase, her footsteps echoing in the cavernous room as she stepped towards Nadir.

"Hello, Monsieur Khan. What are you doing, just standing here like this?"

"Waiting for you, Madame. Your daughter told me you were going out today, so I assumed I would catch you here before you left," said Nadir.

"Me? Whatever for?"

Christine could barely hear his words as the Persian lowered his voice. "I understand you are close with Erik."

Madame Giry started a little. Nadir continued. "I am as well. That is why I came to you. We have a…complicated situation on our hands."

"What has he done?" Antoinette asked immediately.

"Nothing. Well, as far as I know. I cannot possibly know what he's doing where he is now…"

"So he has run away?" she gasped. Nadir shook his head.

"Not exactly. Let us talk somewhere more private."

"Of course. My office," she said, then turned to walk back the way she had came, Nadir following right behind.

"Let's go," whispered Christine to Gerry, glancing out into the hall to see if anyone was there. Her heart jolted when she saw a group of ballet girls coming towards them. For a moment, she panicked, not having anywhere to hide, but Gerry pushed her in the curtain behind him and jumped out just as the ballerinas reached the balcony.

As expected, they stopped, staring at the masked figure with their jaws dropped. He gave them the most menacing glare he could manage and took three slow steps towards them. Before he even got within five feet of them, they screamed and scattered in opposite directions down the hallway.

When they were gone, he turned back to Christine with a smirk. "Ballet girls…so skittish."

"Just like him…" she sighed, but gave him a little smile to let him know she was joking. "Well, let's get to Madame Giry's office quickly, so we don't miss any valuable information."

Within minutes, they arrived outside the said office door, which was already closed. Pressing her ear against the door, Christine could hear Antoinette's and Nadir's voices inside, but not very clearly.

Without much consideration, she simply opened the door and walked inside calmly, stopping the conversation. Gerry swallowed and followed her quickly, eager to get out of the open.

"Christine…Erik!" said Antoinette.

"That's what I was just getting to…that's not Erik," Nadir said slowly, looking at the other man and back at the ballet mistress, who scoffed.

"What are you talking about, of course that's Erik!"

"He's right," said Christine. Gerry nodded, also affirming the fact. Antoinette sputtered.

"I don't understand…"

"Something very strange and very supernatural has happened, Madame," Nadir said, then motioned to a chair. "You'd better sit down."

Gerry and Christine tried their best to politely keep quiet while Nadir explained everything, but they couldn't help but correct him every so often. By the end of the story telling, he was rather irritated with them, but maintained his composure.

"This is impossible," said Antoinette, shaking her head. Then she turned to Gerry, just staring at him. After a few uncomfortable seconds, he spoke.

"Seriously. I'm not Erik."

Antoinette was not a woman to ignore what was right in front of her. And his voice and manner of speaking was too different to just be good acting on Erik's part.

"We have only guesses at why this could have happened," Nadir said. "Perhaps a higher power believes he and his double have a lesson to be learned…"

"Or it's just a weird glitch in the universe. Whatever it is, I really need to get back," said Gerry pleadingly. "Do you know of anything that can help?"

Giry sighed and thought a moment. "I know and believe in many beliefs some would consider strange or even unreasonable, but I have never heard of a situation quite like this….it could, indeed, be something out of our control if it is the work of God. But if it is not, perhaps it can be reversed…."

"How?" asked Christine anxiously.

"We can call on spirits and see if one had anything to do with it," said Madame Giry. Nadir rolled his eyes.

"Spirits?"

"Yes, Monsieur Khan, souls of the dead," Giry explained dryly.

"I know what they are," he defended. "But as a Christian woman, do you not believe that once a person dies, they simply go onto heaven or hell?"

"Most of the time. Even if they are in either of those domains, they may still interfere with our lives," she said gravely.

"We…did have a strange feeling at the same time," Christine said, looking at Gerry. "We thought it might be something happening on the other side, where Erik is."

"What sort of feeling?" asked Madame Giry.

"A breathless, hit-in-the-gut feeling," Gerry said. She frowned.

"It could be Erik if it only happened to you, but Christine felt it too. A spirit could be trying to meddle with her soul as well. Do you know any dead person who would wish to do this?"

All three shook their head. Antoinette sighed.

"We shall have to call on all of them, then."

/

"Ok, keep doing what you're doing, Gerry, but Emmy, you have to step it up a bit with the passion. Be seduced."

Emmy was getting flustered. This was the fifth time Joel had stopped the scene just because he wasn't satisfied with her performance. She was doing everything she could, but apparently, it wasn't enough.

"Avoid eye contact with me and pull your sleeves up a few times, like you're trying to be modest. She did that," Erik said quietly. Emmy was a little surprised since this was the first time he had actually talked to her during the scene.

"But Joel said to look seduced."

Erik rolled his eyes. "He seems to like everything I'm doing, which is exactly what I did when this was really happening. Just do it. Trust me."

"Ok…thank you."

When they filmed Erik's introduction yet again, Emmy did just as he said, exaggerating emotional conflict between giving into him and keeping her distance. The scene continued with no interruptions until about halfway into her part of the song.

"Cut. Bravo, Emmy, you did perfectly! But right here, when you say '_decided' _you should, well, make a decision, you know?" Joel said.

Erik leaned over to Emmy to whisper, "He means look at me and try to seduce me this time."

As she nodded, Joel narrowed his eyes and rubbed his chin. "What are you telling her, Gerry?"

"Oh, he's just giving me tips on what to do," Emmy said quickly. Erik nodded.

"Ah…well, normally, I would say that's _my_ job…but he seems to know what he's doing," Joel said admittedly. "We'll see how this goes. Three, two, one, action!"

Once again, Emmy did as Erik said, looking at him with her most 'come hither' expression as she lip synced to her own voice. She surprised herself with how easy this came to her, and how much fun it was to induce little reactions from him such as a longing stare (acting though it was). The take lasted all the way to the top of the stairs, where they were stopped just so the cameras could move closer to the bridge and behind Emmy to get a shot of Erik. They slowly stepped towards eachother with the tension building until they paused for the cameramen again, who swapped to view Emmy. Finally, they could actually reach each other, Erik grabbing her hips and spinning her around, pulling her against him. Emmy felt a genuine rush at that point, and immediately tried to calm herself, but ended up coming back to reality a little too suddenly. She could feel all the eyes on her and had to force herself not to run out of Erik's arms in embarrassment.

_No one cares, it's in the script, it's just acting…this is what they WANT you to do…_ she assured herself, even though she was well aware of this fact anyway. The exposed, awkward feeling only increased when Erik moved on to take her hand and run it over her chest up to her neck. She was sure this looked perfectly fine on camera, but it felt almost pornographic to actually be doing it.

The music stopped. "Let's get a profile shot now," Joel instructed a cameraman, who moved next to them on the bridge for a few seconds as the music started up again. They just stood still, Emmy taking a cue from Erik's slightly heavy breathing and doing the same. Another camera moved in front of them as the melody changed to 'All I Ask Of You'.

Emmy decided to look relaxed at this part, which was apparently a good choice since no one cut them off. As she felt Erik shift, starting to turn her around, she widened her eyes as if suddenly realizing something, then smiled at him apologetically, knowing what was coming up next.

Forcing himself to look oblivious, Erik continued acting hopeful until she finally reached up and pulled off the mask—revealing absolutely nothing, of course, since they were going to wait until that moment to add the prosthetic.

"Great job! Absolutely spot on!" Joel said, clapping a little before rising out of his chair. "Ok, we're done with that scene today, we'll continue with the unmasking tomorrow. Let's do a few more shots of the people in the boxes. Ah, and Patrick's reactions, of course…"


	18. Ooh, Spirits!

**AN: Just found out the first Ouija board was created in 1871 (right when Phantom ended). Unless of course, Wikipedia is lying, which it probably is. I don't know what month it was invented, or how widely spread it was, but let's assume our Victorian era characters can obtain one. It won't be the first thing they use, by the way. **

CHAPTER 18

Nadir refused to be part of the séance circle that Madame Giry had created and had politely moved to a corner, just to watch the ridiculousness unfold. The ballet mistress closed the thick curtains and made sure no lights were lit aside from a candle in the middle of a small table. After they were all seated (Nadir excluded), she took one of Christine's and Gerry's hands. Hesitantly, they took each other's as well to complete the circle.

The older woman waited a long moment before speaking in a serious, low voice.

"Is there anyone here?"

The candle flickered. Madame Giry stared at it with wide eyes.

"Who are you?"

"Um…actually that was me, I yawned," Gerry said quietly, a bit embarrassed for the woman. She glared at him, then sighed and repeated herself.

"Is there anyone…here?"

At least a minute of absolute, boring silence passed. Nadir rolled his eyes. Just as he expected. Now, maybe they would see reason.

But then, Gerry heard a distant, echoing laugh. Even as level-headed as he normally was, he assumed it was just the creepy atmosphere getting to him. Then Christine heard it too, and looked at him and Antoinette for the affirmation that she wasn't going mad.

"Who is there?" Madame Giry asked, a little shakily as the laughter grew louder until they could all tell it was a man's laugh. It wasn't a happy chuckle, but it wasn't quite a menacing, blood curdling laugh that one would imagine a demon's would sound like. It could be best described as sounding like a lunatic having a fit.

Madame Giry repeated her question, but the laughing didn't cease.

"Tell us who you are!" Christine demanded. Gerry noticed she was gripping his hand rather tightly. Strangely, at her voice, the laughing stopped and the only sound that could be heard was everyone's breathing. Finally, the smooth voice hissed in all of their ears, as if whoever it was spoke right beside them.

"You shall not know who I am…" said the voice mysteriously, giving another chuckle. "That would be counterproductive, you see!"

Christine swallowed and bravely asked, "What do you want?"

There was another ghostly cackle. "Amusement!"

"So it _is_ some smartass just screwing with us for fun…" Gerry muttered, and immediately got a glare from Madame Giry.

_Right, probably shouldn't piss him off, _he thought.

The voice mused, "What a strange era you are from, Mr. Butler! With your shiny screens and technology that acts like magic! Very strange indeed!"

"Why did you swap us?"

At this point, their eyes all widened as a different voice spoke. It was a man's voice, but more reasonable sounding and a bit deeper. "I've been wondering that myself, and as usual, he doesn't have much reason for anything. But it is rather funny, I must admit."

"As amusing as this is to you, it isn't to me and probably not to Erik either, so will you please swap us back?" Gerry snapped, the uncertainty and fear of the situation getting to him.

Yet another male voice, this one higher and nasally, spoke up. "Oh, we will once we get bored with you. Or if you swap yourselves back."

"How do we do that?" Christine asked. A kinder ghostly voice spoke up.

"Well, all you have to do is—" he started to say, but was cut off by a shriek from the first, insane sounding voice.

"DON'T TELL THEM!"

A small cough was heard, then the first voice said, "Sorry, my dear, I would love to swap your friend back into his own body, but the others want to see how this..eh…well, how it all plays out, you see."

"Will someone please at least say who you all are?" pleaded the soprano girl.

"Uh….Oh, look at the time, better go!"

"Yes, we are very busy…"

"So sorry, can't say…"

"Figure it out yourselves!"

With that, all of the voices were gone, and everyone in the room felt as if a presence had left. After a few moments of collecting their thoughts (and slowing their breathing) they glanced at Nadir, who looked confused.

"What?"

"Did you recognize their voices?" Christine asked.

"Recognize what voices, I didn't hear anything!"

Gerry groaned and slapped his palm to his forehead, knowing now for sure that he would never get out of this place. After panicking about this for a moment, he wondered if maybe this wasn't such a bad thing after all.

/

Erik had been left alone to his thoughts when Emmy was 'kidnapped' by her female coworkers (namely, Minnie and Jennifer) who hadn't talked to her much since he had arrived. He first thought of going back to his trailer, but had the urge to explore more of this world. After much thought on this, he decided to head to the parking lot and examine cars.

A bright red one caught his attention, naturally. Walking over to it, he stood a safe distance away at first, just looking at it, trying to figure out how it possibly worked.

_A painted metal carriage that drives itself without the use of horses… _

He had taken note of how one was driven, since he had been in a car with Emmy on more than one occasion, but he couldn't understand the technology behind it at all. Stepping closer, he curiously touched the vehicle. Bad decision.

It started blaring a horrible noise over and over while flashing lights, making Erik yelp and jump back, afraid the machine could somehow attack him. When it didn't move, it was only a small comfort. As he wondered what to do, he heard footsteps behind him, then the car made a high beep and went silent, no longer flashing.

Turning around, Erik saw Patrick looking at him suspiciously with keys in his hand.

"What were you doing?"

For one of the few times in his life, Erik was speechless. He glanced at the car with wide eyes and back at Patrick, sure that he had done something that would end horribly.

"I…I wasn't doing anything, I was just looking at it and I accidentally touched it…." he finally stammered, praying that his answer would make sense in this situation, since his touching it was what set it off.

Patrick relaxed immediately and smiled. "Oh…yeah, I understand, people do look at it a lot."

Nodding, Erik said, "Yes. It's…bright."

"Yep," Patrick chuckled, looking at his car as one would look at a beloved pet. "I know it's flashier than I would usually like, but it was a gift, so…"

"A gift? From who?" asked Erik, still trying to seem conversational and innocent.

"My fiancée."

Erik was shocked for two reasons: One, that a woman had bought something he assumed to be extremely expensive for a man, and two, that Patrick even had a fiancée.

"How very nice of her," he commented. Thinking a moment, he decided to ask, "What is her name?"

"Dagmara," said Patrick fondly, then elaborated. "She's Polish. Also an actress. We went to college together."

_Women go to college now? Then again, I shouldn't be surprised, women seem to do everything men do in this era, _thought Erik interestedly.

"Oh. Well, congratulations on your engagement," he said cordially.

"Thanks!"

_And it appears I have little to no threat from him anymore in regards to Emmy. Unless, of course, he is the type to have affairs. But considering he is happily engaged, I doubt it._

"So," Patrick trailed off. "How have you been?"

"Good, I suppose."

"Has anything happened lately?"

Immediately tensing, Erik shook his head. "No…why?"

"I've just noticed you've been acting a little different this week. I mean, as a friend, I'm concerned."

_As a FRIEND? _thought Erik in horror. _I've been here this long and I didn't know this? I knew we were supposedly on good terms, but he and Gerry are actually friends? _

"Well, uh…" he struggled to come up with a reason. "I have just been under pressure about the whole filming process. It's a harder task than it appears."

"Yeah, that much I know," agreed Patrick, who then chuckled. "Like those water scenes and the bareback riding practically killed me!"

"Did it, now?" Erik remarked uninterestedly.

"Yeah, it was…quite an experience, let's put it that way," said the other man, then glanced back at the studio as if he had somewhere to be. "Well, good talk, Gerry."

With that, Erik was relieved to see the man go.

_Strange. My job is acting, but I don't have to act because I'm playing myself, yet being 'myself' means I have to act. _


	19. Soap Operas

**AN: Sorry for the later update, I'm really having to think hard to come up with ideas for this now. Ah by the way….-phangirl squee- So many reviews make a very happy VampPhan! Glad to see people wondering who the voices are…seen some good guesses! Thanks again, readers, and here is the next chapter.**

CHAPTER 19

All four people were absentmindedly pacing in the dim office, wondering about the whole ordeal that had just happened. Christine furrowed her brows and asked, "First, why couldn't Nadir hear it?"

"Because he wasn't in the circle," explained Madame Giry.

"Of course," said Gerry.

"I think you're all doing this on purpose just to toy with my mind," Nadir muttered. He immediately got many strange looks.

"Trust me, you aren't worth that much of our attention," Gerry said smugly, receiving a glare from the Persian.

"Of all the things you could have in common, it has to be your sarcasm," he sighed.

"What sarcasm? I was being serious."

Nadir rolled his eyes indignantly and turned to Christine. "Where are you staying? The Vicomte has been terribly worried for you, as are many others. The only reason I did not assist them in their efforts to find a safe way into Erik's lair is because I was not sure if you wanted to be found. Do you?"

She hesitated, glancing at Gerry, who quickly averted his gaze.

"I can't leave him alone here. I mean, he needs a guide. Even though he knows things from playing the role of Erik and knowing some history about this era, actually living this life is entirely foreign to him. If I went to Raoul, he would never understand the situation. He would think I was hypnotized or tricked by Erik again."

"Must be nice having a boyfriend who has so much faith in your judgment…" Gerry said drolly.

"He has faith in my judgment, he is just very protective! And it has happened before," she defended herself. He just nodded, trying his best to look like he sincerely believed her, but it was in vain. Knowing this, Christine huffed and looked at Antoinette.

"How is the Opera? And what was the outcome of the…chandelier incident?"

The older woman sighed sadly and looked down. "Two people perished. Five were injured."

Christine gasped. "That's awful!"

"Yes…it was very unfortunate," Madame Giry nodded. "As for business, no operas are to be performed until two weeks from now, due to respect for the victims and also for repairs. It will be a while before we can afford a new chandelier. Everyone I know of is coping with something, but doing fine overall. The Vicomte and my Meg are mostly trying to cope with your disappearance."

"I expected as much," said the young woman with a melancholy smile. "As soon as this whole ordeal is over, I will see them again."

Antoinette raised a brow. "De Chagny I can understand. But Meg will not hold you back from what you must do, nor will she tell anyone what is going on. I will make sure of it."

"You think I should see her?"

"She is your best friend, is she not?

Christine bit her lip, feeling guilty suddenly. "Yes…I should see her. Where is she?"

"I do not know for certain, but I'd expect she's with the rest of the ballet, screaming about a certain Opera Ghost," Antoinette said, looking pointedly at Gerry, who grinned proudly.

"And where would the rest of the ballet be?" Christine asked.

"Once again, I am not certain, but I can make an assumption with confidence that they are in their dormitories."

"Clinging to each other like scared little schoolgirls?" Gerry added, and Antoinette regretfully nodded. Christine glanced at everyone for a moment, then gave a quick bow of the head and turned to the door, leaving before anyone could say anything in protest.

/

Erik had been trying to avoid thinking about the Point of No Return scene with Emmy, but as people kept on congratulating him on his 'acting', it was becoming an impossible task. Finally, he had to simply lock himself up in his trailer and try and distract himself with more modern technology (mostly the computer.) But he only found himself researching his own story yet again, watching YouTube clips of various stage plays performing the very scene he didn't want to think about.

At last, he decided to rationalize his emotions.

_It only makes sense that you would feel the same emotions. I mean, you're reliving the same moments, _he told himself calmly, but then frowned and thought. _Yes, but I know what is going to happen. And I'm frequently reminded that this is just acting and that she isn't Christine. I know I'm still not accustomed to that much physical contact with anyone, but it wasn't just nervousness or excitement. There was hope for something. _

Meanwhile, Emmy was reflecting on the 'girl time' she just had with half the female cast members at a nearby diner. She had started off just talking to Minnie and Jennifer, but then Jennifer had decided it would be fun to invite all the friends she had made during filming (since she had lots of free time from not being a lead character) to dinner. Most of these friends were extras or backup dancers for the Don Juan scene. Emmy didn't know hardly any of them. Still, she had a decent time with them. It only got a bit awkward when they all started talking about Gerry and his attractiveness. Not that this was a rare occurrence, but it was strange to hear now that Gerry…wasn't Gerry. It was even stranger when she felt a tiny glimpse of jealousy.

Shaking this off as a reasonably weird reaction to a weird situation, Emmy thought nothing more of it and went back to her trailer for some much needed rest.

Erik couldn't deny that he was disappointed when she didn't come to visit him as usual, and spent a rather boring, lonely night alone. But he saw her soon enough the next morning.

"You're lucky, you know."

Erik almost turned around at the sound of Emmy's voice but was held still by one of the many women working on the deformity for the next scene. He already felt like he couldn't move that side of his face.

_Why? Am I lucky because I can take this off at the end of the day now? Even so, it feels a lot worse than the real one did…._

"Why?"

"The TV," said Emmy, stepping around the makeup women so Erik could actually look at her when he talked. She was about to give him away by informing him that Gerry hadn't had such entertainment the first few times they had done the complicated makeup job on him. But Erik assumed this anyway.

"Yes, it's quite convenient," said Erik. "Though I feel much less intelligent after watching two hours or so of this garbage."

Turning her eyes to the screen, Emmy saw what he meant and smiled in amusement. It was an ancient rerun of Wheel of Fortune.

"You know you can change the channel, right?" said one of the makeup women.

"Of course I knew that," Erik snapped, grabbing the remote and searching for the channel button. After a few awkward moments of looking for it, he stopped on a daytime soap opera episode which had just started.

Emmy covered her mouth a little as her smile turned into a laugh.

"I don't think you'll like this much either…"

Erik shushed her as he listened to the introduction of the show, which explained dramatically what all had happened in the last episode (someone being sent to the ER, someone not knowing who the father of her child was, someone else finding out she had a long lost sister who was kidnapped, etc.)

Within moments, he was totally enraptured with the cheesy, dramatic storyline.

"Did you see that Emmy? The father is her brother! But she didn't know it was her brother because he was adopted by their godparents! Oh that's disgusting…"

Emmy couldn't do anything except facepalm. He glanced at her and held up his hands, gesturing to the TV in disbelief.

"What? This is fascinating! So much suspense!"

"And you're supposed to be a genius," Emmy sighed, still unable to keep herself from laughing. One of the makeup women glanced up with a painted eyebrow raised.

"He is?"

"Of course I am!" Erik said in a joking manner to cover for Emmy. "Joel said so himself!"

"Can't imagine why," said Emmy, playing along. Erik pretended to look hurt.

Mercifully, the long makeup process was over at that point, and the other women in the room left to help the other actors. Erik got up and looked in the mirror.

"Odd…as uncomfortable as this is, I don't hate it half as much as when it was real. Not just because it's fake and can be removed, but because no one reacts to it. No one jumps at the sight. No one even looks at me strangely. In fact, they pay me more positive attention. And I get paid for it," he mused, staring at his reflection in an almost curious manner.

"You know that after this movie, you're probably going to get much, much more attention."

"Why?"

Emmy held up her hands like this was obvious. "I mean, this musical is famous worldwide. Everyone has been waiting for a movie version. And it would be a thousand times more convenient to see than a play. It's expected that millions of people will see it. So everyone will know your name—well, Gerry's, anyway. And mine. Or at least they'll recognize our faces once we do other films. Which we will definitely get tons of offers to be in, just because of our work in this movie. After this, pretty much everyone who sees you will be like 'Hey, that's the guy who was in _Phantom of the Opera_! Oh my God! Let's get his autograph!'"

"Thank you, Emmy, I feel completely at ease now," said Erik sarcastically. "Not pressured at all."

She sighed. "Well, if we ever figure out how to get you back in your own life, you won't have to worry about it."

"That's true. But that still is the question. Am I better here or there?"


	20. Victorian Girl Talk

**AN: This is getting hard O_O It's like trying to force idea toothpaste out of an almost empty tube. **

CHAPTER 20

Christine made her way to the ballet dormitories as discretely as she could, avoiding any person she heard or saw coming her way. When she found the large room, she took a moment to take it in. It had been a long time since she had even been in the dormitory full of bunk beds, ribbons, dusty pointe shoes and powder puffs, let alone slept there as she used to for so many years. Sitting on one of the thin mattresses alone, she sighed.

_Meg should be along any moment now…_

For a moment, she held her breath at the realization that ANY ballet girl could also come in, and that Meg and herself would have no privacy. Absolutely no one else could know what had happened.

Then, she heard a creak above her head, followed by a tiny yawn. Quickly covering her mouth so as not to gasp, Christine realized she hadn't done more than just glance over the top bunks. There was nowhere she could run or hide without whoever it was seeing her.

A foot perched on the top rung of the bunk ladder, followed by another. Carefully, dainty feet climbed down until the entire, skinny, chemise covered body stood firm on the floor. Then the face turned to the curled up Christine, and great blue eyes widened in shock.

"Christine!"

"Meg…" the brunette girl sighed thankfully, scooting off the bed and embracing her friend.

"How..where did you…what?"

"It's actually a long story…"

"I have all the time in the world! Enough time for afternoon naps, as you can see," said Meg as she gestured to her bunk. Taking Christine's shoulders, she pleaded, "Tell me where you've been!"

So she did. And Meg, being even more superstitious than her mother, ate the information up without question. Well, with a million questions, but no doubts as to Christine's answers.

"You must be VERY torn now, then," she said. Christine furrowed her brows in confusion.

"Why would I be torn?"

"Well, you said what was mainly preventing you from returning the Pha—Erik's…love was his soul, not his appearance. But this man, Gerry, is actually a good person."

Christine rolled her eyes at that.

"He's a pig."

Meg gasped and then laughed. "Christine! I've never heard you speak a harsh word about anyone…"

"I've thought it plenty of times, believe me," said the other girl bluntly. The blonde grinned.

"I should probably disapprove, but this change is probably good for you. May I ask what brought it on?"

Shrugging slightly, Christine shook her head. "I don't really know. There has been a lot of changes in my life these past months. A lot of frustration. I almost had no other choice than to change with it."

The blonde nodded, understanding entirely. "I think you need a break."

Christine looked as if this was a foreign word to her. "A break?"

"Yes, you know, to get away from it all."

Shaking her head, Christine sighed. "I can't. Not yet. I have to see this through. And after that, I have to settle the issue with Erik and Raoul. And once I choose, then whomever it is will most likely wish to be married as soon as possible and spend months of uninterrupted time with me…"

Meg had to force herself to look sympathetic and be a good friend. She had been initially jealous when the Vicomte came to fancy Christine rather than her, but she understood since they had been childhood friends. Then when he persisted in fighting for her as yet another man fell in love with her (insane and frightening though he was) Meg had to tell herself that she would never want to be in such a dramatic and risky situation. And now there was yet another man involved, making the choice not as obvious as before. And not just any man, he was one who shouldn't even exist! From another world entirely…who could even imagine that? And with him came the sadness of parting, as he didn't belong in their world. But deep down, Meg knew she had always wanted something similar to any of this to happen to her. Didn't every girl? Ghost stories whispered amongst the ballet and the tragic, romantic operas performed were popular for a reason, after all.

But it was always Christine who could experience, love and suffer through all of that. Not Meg. She should be content to find an ordinary, average man with an average salary whom she could live quietly with for the rest of their average lives.

"Maybe you shouldn't switch him back…" said Meg slowly. "If you want Erik to be happy but you can't give him what he's asked of you..."

"You mean he would be happier in a normal—well, even above average life without me? Because he would have a fair chance of actually being happy and loved?"

Meg nodded. "Yes."

"Oh Meg…I would love that for him, but it is Gerry's life, not his…."

"But what if Gerry would be content in Erik's life?"

Christine gave Meg an incredulous look. "Why on earth would ANYONE want to be Erik?"

The other girl paused then gave a sheepish smile. "That's a very good question."

**AN: I'm so sorry it was this horribly short but I really can't come up with what to write between now and the next big scene. Feel free to leave any suggestions in a review as well as your overall impression. Ideas would be great.**


	21. Trapped with Chinese Food

**AN: Thanks so much for the suggestions! They all inspired me how I could shape the rest of the story with bits and pieces of those ideas. So now I pretty much have it all plotted out in my head, with the exception of a few details. But it's all good. (Oh, and it may seem like Raoul bashing here, but it's really not. I love the guy. I just think this is how he would react to the situation.)**

CHAPTER 21

"Seriously, did you see that part where the red haired woman found out that her older sister was actually her mother? That was so shocking!" Erik said, still insisting to Emmy as they walked to the studio that the soap opera he had just seen was the best story in the world.

"Yes, Erik, it was completely fascinating," she sighed. "But we ourselves have to be shocking now, so…I would say get into character, but in your case the phrase is 'just be yourself'…"

"Of course," he nodded as they entered the auditorium set, climbing up the spiral staircase on the stage. For once, they got started almost as soon as they were in the middle of the bridge.

"Alright, Gerry, I trust you know what to do," Joel said briefly then went straight to "Three, two, one, action!"

The scene actually took more takes than they expected because either Erik didn't have exactly the right expression (hard to do when he couldn't move half his face) or Emmy ended up laughing in the middle of a take at his discomfort with the rubbery material. And after they finally got that part down, it took Erik forever to cut through the chandelier rope with one slice.

"How on earth I did this before, I'll never know…" he muttered, hacking again.

"Maybe it's because you were actually angry."

He shrugged. "Probably."

By the fifth take, the rope was weakened enough that he could actually cut through the rest for that one, split second shot. Then came the fun part.

"Alright, now it gets interesting," Joel announced. "You guys are going drop through a trapdoor about fifteen feet and land on this mat under the fake fire."

"I thought we had stunt doubles for everything like that. Even Kevin—Buquet's actor, had a stunt double for the hanging drop," Emmy whispered to Erik. He just shrugged. He had done this before with only straw to land on and was just fine.

"So yes, you guys are doing your own 'stunts'. Though this is hardly dangerous," Joel chuckled to himself. Erik nodded, wanting to get on with it already.

"Alright, going to drop in five, four, three, two…"  
Emmy's heart immediately stopped when there was no longer wood beneath her feet. At the same moment, Erik pulled her to him and she clung to him for dear life. After only a moment of a sick, stomach turning sensation, they landed on a thick mat with a thud. It only stung a little on her side, where she landed.

"I've always hated falling…I can't even ride most rollercoasters…" she muttered, staggering to her feet. Erik helped her steady herself, chuckling a little.

"Hopefully, this was the only take they needed of this."

Erik turned to the small ladder beside them and they climbed back out. Emmy gave a half hearted thumbs up to the small audience, who gave an even smaller applause.

"Good," Joel said simply, then moved onto the next few shots of extras again, since he had decided there wasn't enough filming of their reactions to _Don Juan. _

Emmy went backstage to find either a wall clock or someone with a watch, being shadowed, of course, by Erik. Pretty soon, she found the former, which read that it was 6:00 PM.

"No wonder I'm hungry…" she murmured. "I didn't think it was that late. Did you, Erik?"

He shook his head. "I suppose we're done for today. We might as well go somewhere for dinner."

Strangely, as they were starting to head towards the studio door, Miranda Richardson came to them with a Chinese takeout bag.

"Oh, hello Emmy, Gerry," she said, as if she was surprised to see them there. "We just went out for dinner and I thought since you were working and couldn't come, I'd bring you this."

Emmy immediately gushed, "Oh wow, thank you! That's so nice of you!"

Miranda smiled a little and nodded, handing her the bag. Erik raised a brow, thinking this suspicious, but didn't say anything aside from a polite word of thanks.

"You're welcome," said Miranda, turning to leave, but then she stopped. "Oh, would you do me a favor?"

_Ah, here it comes…_thought Erik, resisting the temptation to roll his eyes.

"Sure," said Emmy.

"Can you look around and see if you can find my laptop? It's in a grey case with my name on it and I can't remember where on earth I put it," she said, then chuckled. "I must be getting old…I have someplace I need to be so I can't search for it now, but I need it by tomorrow morning."

"Yeah, of course," Emmy agreed, sweetly as always. Miranda thanked them profusely and then left through the doors.

"We might as well eat first, before it gets cold," said Erik, taking the bag then looking around for a place to eat it. Emmy followed him as he wandered around backstage, where the majority of people seemed to be slowly making their way towards the exit.

"How about here?" asked Emmy, stopping Erik in front of what looked like a break room.

"Perfect."

As Emmy bought some sodas from the vending machine inside, Erik opened the to-go boxes inside to find fried rice and some generic beef lo mien. Once again, he had no idea what he was looking at.

"It's like Asian spaghetti, Erik," she told him. He nodded like he knew that all along and took a can of soda from her, attempting to open it. At this point, he knew how, but actually doing it was still tough. Trying not to laugh at him, she popped it open for him then put the lo mein between them and started on her half.

After taking a sip of the carbonated syrup, Erik asked, "How much did this whole thing cost to make?"

"The movie?"

"Yes."

She looked off, thinking. "Um…I think about 70 million…"

Erik almost choked on his drink. "70 MILLION?"

"Yeah, that's actually low budget, since this is an independent movie. You know, no big name studios like Universal or Castle Rock or something helping us out. Warner Bros was going to do it but then The Really Useful Group bought them out…Andrew spent six million of his own money to pay for this, you know…" Emmy started to babble, but then noticed how confused Erik looked. "Sorry. It doesn't really matter."

He just smiled and nodded, then hesitantly started on the lo mien as well.

"Kind of greasy," he said, grimacing. Emmy grinned nodded, mouth still full. When she swallowed, she said, "It can't be much worse than all those burgers you ate on your first day here."

"Ah…don't remind me of that!"

They continued talking and eating (Erik had decided just to have the fried rice and pick out pieces of beef in the noodles) for the next 10 minutes. When she had finished, Emmy stood up.

"Where do you figure that laptop is?"

About then, the door behind her slammed shut, making her spin around and Erik jumped to his feet. They started shouting in panic when the knob twisted, the door being locked.

"What the hell? We're in here!"

Whoever it was had long gone, and there was no window on the door to even see who the culprit was. But the light filtering in from the hallway disappeared, and a moment later, the lights within the break room turned off, leaving only the bluish glow of the vending machines.

"Seriously….Really. That just happened. Really?"

"Yes, Emmy, someone did in fact just lock us in here and turn off the lights. Really and seriously," Erik said dryly. She glared at him.

"Aren't you shocked about this?"

"Of course I am, but I'm not in denial about it!"

She just rolled her eyes and went to the door, shaking it and shouting through it, "Is anyone there? We're locked in!"

After trying this for a few minutes, she turned around and sank to the floor, arms around her knees and looking at the floor. Noticing her distress, Erik walked over.

"Everyone will come back in the morning, it'll be fine. We'll get out..."

"I know, I'm just…" she trailed off, shaking her head. "Why? I mean, we were obviously in here, the door was wide open and we were talking. It wasn't a mistake."

"Maybe it was someone's idea of a joke."

"Yeah, that's got to be it," Emmy sighed. "Lame joke."

Erik nodded in agreement and sat down next to her. "At least we aren't going to be hungry while we find a way to occupy ourselves for twelve hours," he joked in an attempt to make her feel better. It seemed to work since she smiled a little.

"That's true…"

"So what do people of 2004 do to pass time?" Erik inquired. She chuckled.

"Really lame games. This one is actually like the beginning of a popular middle school game…"

"What game is that?"

"7 minutes in heaven."

/

Christine had been patiently listening for ten or so minutes to Meg's suggestions as to why Gerry might want to stay in Erik's body and politely telling her why those reasons weren't valid. At last, she came up with a slightly reasonable idea—well, half of it was.

"What if he wants a fresh start because he is tired of the superficiality of his own culture and finds you to be different than women he has met before, someone with depth?"

"You mean him, falling in love with me? Ridiculous."

"Why not?" Meg shrugged, optimistic as usual. "The Vicomte fell in love with you."

"Yes, only because he knew me from when we were children. Otherwise, he wouldn't have even looked twice at me," Christine sighed. "Actually, he didn't even recognize me until I replaced Carlotta in _Hannibal_, remember?"

Meg bit her lip. "You really think so?"

The brunette nodded. Thinking a moment about whether what she was about to say was a selfish thing or being a good friend, Meg decided to go ahead and spit it out.

"Are you sure you want to be with someone like that then?"

"What are you saying?" Christine said, eyes a little wide at the suggestion. "That he only cares because I became famous? I only stood out when I was famous. I'm sure it was like you told me when he passed by, he just didn't see me…"

"Maybe…but I would notice my childhood friend more quickly if I was in a close proximity to them rather than if I saw them from a distance on stage."

Christine looked away, thinking quickly for a comeback. "But it was my voice he must have recognized, since we had both grown so much since we were children…"

"Voices change over time too," Meg replied quietly.

Having no more statements to challenge Meg's suggestions, Christine stood. "I had better get back to Gerry then, make sure he isn't fighting Nadir or something. I'll see you soon. Perhaps tomorrow."

"Alright. I'll most likely be here again."

Christine smiled and made her way back where she had came from as sneakily as before (though she saw no one this time). By the time she got about halfway there, she could hear echoed shouts and a few slams and thuds. She immediately rushed in the direction of the noise as fast as she could.

When she arrived on the upstairs balcony across from Madame Giry's office, she found her and Nadir watching in shock as Gerry dodged jabs from a sword, wielded by an enraged Raoul.

"Monsieur le Vicomte, please, you don't know what you're doing!" Nadir said, grabbing his arm and trying to hold him back, but he was pushed away.

"I know exactly what I'm doing!" snapped Chagny, still frustratedly trying to slash into Gerry as he shouted, "I'm trying…! To..! Kill an insane…! Murdering…! Monster who kidnapped my…! Fiancée!"

Christine kept a very safe distance away from the swinging blade and made sure she was out of Raoul's direct gaze, so he would have to turn around when she made herself known.

"Stop it!"

As expected, he spun around in shock to hear her voice, but only for a brief moment before he went back to his attack. His distraction had still given him a disadvantage, as Gerry had fled down the stairs and the Vicomte chased after him, followed by the others.

"Nadir is right, you don't know what you're doing!" she insisted pleadingly, finally deciding she had to tell him sometime or another. "It's not him!"

"What are you talking about, it's not him, no one else in the world looks like this!" Chagny huffed, now almost running around in circles trying to catch up to Gerry.

"Seriously! I'm not him!" Gerry panted when he had evaded a slash by dodging behind a statue. Raoul only paused for a moment at the strange accent before continuing.

"This is one of your most pathetic tricks! Tricking her into thinking you're someone else just by changing your voice? Ha!"

Christine sighed and called out, "Raoul! Don't you remember?"

"Remember what?"

"In the lair, how he was acting?"

"Yes, so? He's insane! Insane people act strangely!" he barked, now very out of breath from chasing Gerry around the lobby. When he stopped for a moment, he realized that it was odd that he was just chasing the man with a sword instead of actually combating him, since the villain he knew had always been prepared for a fight. It was also odd that the masked man hadn't simply disappeared through a trapdoor or made some other illusion to escape. In fact, he was just standing a safe distance away from him with his hands held out in front of him defensively.

"None of us can explain it to you when you're busy trying to kill me!" Gerry said exasperatedly.

Narrowing his eyes with his sword still pointed at his opponent, Chagny glanced at the others.

"Fine! Someone explain this to me!"

Everyone was silent for a moment.

"He won't believe it," Madame Giry said with a roll of her eyes.

"Probably not," agreed Gerry. Christine slowly approached Raoul until she was right beside him, looking at him sincerely.

"Something unexplainable has happened and all we know that this is not Erik-"

"Erik? So the creature has a name?"

Christine sighed, not bothering to argue with him about the 'creature' statement. "Yes. If you kill this man, you won't have succeeded in anything aside from murdering an innocent person. This man is NOT a murderer, he did NOT kidnap me, he's not even in love with me—"

"I saw him do all of those things with my own eyes!" Raoul insisted, afraid that either everyone around him had gone mad or worse, it was himself who was insane.

"Yes, so did we, but that was Erik. Now it is someone else in his body, and Erik is now in his body, somewhere else."

All the others nodded, affirming this. Raoul looked at them all in disbelief, deciding that they were definitely the insane ones.

"Are you serious?"

"I told you he wouldn't believe it," Madame Giry said.

Gerry glanced around on the floor, shifting back ever so slightly when he spotted what he was looking for. Noticing this, Christine quickly rushed beside him. She smiled apologetically at Raoul, who was now even more in shock.

"Raoul, I'm really sorry about this."

With that, Gerry stamped hard on the almost invisible release to the trapdoor, and they disappeared down below, with the door closing shut before Raoul could jump in after them. When they realized they were in the torture chamber, Christine looked around at the rapidly spinning mirrors, overwhelmed.

"Where are we?"

Gerry groaned. "Damn…didn't think about that.."


	22. Truth Or Dare

**AN: Thanks for all the wonderful reviews! I wish I could respond to the anonymous ones, because those were pretty awesome too. **

CHAPTER 22

"…And then there's spin the bottle, where you—"

"Sorry, Emmy, but I can't take in any more information about these promiscuous modern games…"

"Why? Jealous you weren't a teenager living in this era?"

"Yes!"

It had been an hour of just sitting in the break room with Emmy explaining games (but mostly getting off track and telling a story about what happened when she had played at so-and-so's house.) Erik had been plagued with the urge to ask if they could try any of those games "just to kill time" but always stopped himself before he said anything, for fear of sounding foolish, or worse, creepy.

"Well, they aren't just meant for teenagers," Emmy said as casually as she could manage, with a nonchalant hand wave.

All Erik could do was acknowledge that he had heard her by nodding. She paused then tried again.

"I mean, do any of those games sound like something you'd want to do?"

"With you, you mean…?" Erik trailed off unsurely. When she nodded, he shrugged his awkwardness off and said, "Sure, if you would like."

"Which one?"

"Um…your choice."

Emmy, of course, went with truth or dare.

"You or me first?" Erik asked. She thought a moment.

"You. Truth or dare?"  
"Truth."

"Pansy," she said, sticking out her tongue. He glared.

"Whatever that is, I am not a pansy."

"Then go with dare!"

"I thought I had a choice!" he protested. She rolled her eyes.

"Yeah, but everyone knows truth is boring!"

"The truth can be FAR from boring, trust me…."

She shut him up with a palm over his mouth, which he did not appreciate. "I dare you to…try and break into one of those vending machines."

"Why…?"

"Just do it!" she said, giggling a little at the idea. He halfway laughed while giving her a strange look, not sure how he was going to accomplish this. Unsurely, he stood and approached the machine, looking at it.

"I don't even know how to work this normally…is it safe?"

Emmy almost snorted. "No, Erik, the vending machine isn't going to bite you. Just try to get one of the candy bars out or something."

He gave her a look then turned back to it and attempted shaking it, only moving it a few inches. Then he tried kneeling next to it, reaching his hand into the machine as most try to do (and unsuccessfully.) Emmy watched in amusement, crossing her arms. Then, Erik glanced over the machine again and noticed the lock. He smiled ever so slightly and pulled something out of his pocket, fiddled with it, and then twisted it into the lock.

"Oh come on, you just carry around paperclips?" Emmy whined, displeased with how quickly he had figured it out.

"Paperclips? I believe this is called a pen," he said. He held up the separated pieces of a pen in his hand. "I usually figure out how things work by taking them apart. I wanted to do so with Mr. Wilson's car, but that put me in quite a predicament."

"You took apart Patrick's car?"

Erik rolled his eyes. "No, I just considered it. I barely touched the damn thing and it started screaming and flashing lights at me."

"That's called a car alarm, Erik. It keeps thieves away."

He just gave her a 'like-I-even-care' glance and finished picking the lock, opening up the vending machine with a smug grin.

"Ha!" he declared, and extracted a Milky Way bar. Emmy nodded, impressed, and gave him a thumbs up before beckoning him over. Raising a brow, he approached her, only to have the candy snatched out of his hand and unwrapped and in Emmy's mouth in less than a second.

He just held his hands up and looked at her incredulously. She gave him a chocolate filled grin.

"Thanks, Erik."

Sighing, he said, "You're welcome. Now, I believe it is my turn—"

"Truth."

"But I thought 'truth is boring'," he said, mocking her tone.

"Humor me."

Knowing he could come up with a question much easier than a dare, Erik sat down beside her again and hummed quietly as he thought. When he came up with a question, he looked at her with a mysterious smile.

"Did you enjoy my intoxicated kiss?"

Emmy's smile faded and she just stared at him, unable to answer.

/

"I think…we can just…" Gerry trailed off, about to jump through the spinning mirrors but then backing off in fear of getting hit, over and over again. Christine sighed hopelessly.

"I don't believe this…"

The next time he approached the spinning mirrors, Christine shoved him forward before he could jump back again. Miraculously, he stumbled forward in one piece—though in one rather pissed off piece.

"Christine! The hell! I could have been sliced up by those things!"

She stepped forward, looking at the mirrors interestedly before putting her hand through it. Gerry had to shake his head, blink and look at that again. Her hand was really going through the rapidly rotating mirrors.

"It's an illusion…Erik is very good at making those…" she murmured, stepping through them next to Gerry, completely unharmed. His expression was a mixture of shock and annoyance.

"So all the traps I don't know about actually KILL you, but the one I do know about is completely harmless…yet I didn't know that," he said, slapping his palm to his forehead. "I just knew Madame Giry somehow got Raoul out of there…."

"I believe it is designed to kill you in a less direct way. As in, make you go mad and hang yourself," she said as she pointed to the noose in the middle of the circle of mirrored illusions.

Gerry was about to comment on how cruel that was, but then remembered this was explained to him on set already. So he just coughed and muttered, "Yeah, I knew that…"

Christine's thoughts drifted to Raoul and how upset and confused he must be. If she ever did get out of this, how would she explain it to him? Unless Madame Giry and Nadir were doing a superhumanly good job at making him believe what they said, he would never accept such a ridiculous story.

Just as she was about to ask Gerry what they were going to do about this, he fell back as if he was pushed by something. Half a second later, so did she. It was that same feeling from before, only stronger this time.

Panting, Christine grabbed his wrist and pulled him closer. "Here's our chance!"

"No, wait, I—"

Before he could say anything else, she had initiated the kiss. And this time, something definitely was happening. The rapid increase in their pulse and respiration didn't help the newer sensation of being pulled in all different directions. Gerry swore he heard voices. But when he opened his eyes, he was in the exact same place, with Christine laying beside him, trying to slow her breathing.

"What the hell was that for if NOTHING changed?" he snapped at no one, banging his fist on the floor.

"G-Gerry..?"

He looked down at Christine. "What?"

She looked around in wild confusion. "Oh my God. Oh my God, Oh my God, I can't be here! NO!"

"EMMY?"

Sitting bolt upright, she nodded quickly, still obviously panicked. He groaned and rubbed his eyes.

"Oh no…it switched you and Christine…"

She gave him an almost disgusted look. "Did you figure that out all by yourself?"

"Oh, that's cool, go straight to snapping at me, no 'hey Gerry, nice to see you're alive and well…'"

"Fine. Hey-Gerry-glad-to-see-you're-alive-and-well," she repeated back dully. He rolled his eyes and stood up.

"Good enough. Now, explain what's going on over there."

"You mean in the real world? Well, Erik's doing a fantastic job being you, seeing as he just has to be himself on screen…."

"Yeah, alright, at least I still have my job," he sighed, not very relieved. "But why does he keep kissing you?"

Her eyes widened. "How do you know he's kissed me?"

"Because every time it happens, Christine and I felt it," Gerry said. "It's a hard feeling to ignore."

Emmy looked down, thinking back hard. "Did you guys kiss right after we did a few days ago?"

"Yeah, because we figured that's what was going to swap us back, doing the same thing that swapped us in the first place, but then we found out it had to be at the same time. So when we did it at the same time, it worked, but now you're here instead of me being there."

She rubbed her temples and tried to take this in. Her mind was still swimming from whatever had just happened to her to transport her into this dimension.  
"But maybe…" Gerry said. "Maybe we just have to do it again and it'll set everyone right."

Emmy gasped and stepped back. "No, no, no. If I'm going to be stuck in a piece of the Victorian era that isn't supposed to exist, I'm going to enjoy myself. I was just locked in the break room with Erik playing Truth or Dare, for God's sake….and I'm sure Christine will explain to Erik how this whole thing works too. We have plenty of time."

"Playing…truth or dare? Locked in the break room?" Gerry repeated, raising an eyebrow and crossing his arms in disapproval.

"Yes, we went there to eat after Miranda gave us some takeout and told us we needed to find her laptop, and after a few minutes, someone slammed the door and locked us inside. We didn't see who it was. So we got bored and started playing truth or dare…and we ended up kissing, so here I am."

He shook his head, confused. "But that's not a kissing game."

"It is if you're dared to kiss someone."

"So he dared you to kiss him?"

She looked away. "Actually, he asked if I enjoyed the first kiss and I said I wasn't sure, since he was drunk-"

"He was drunk? In my recovering alcoholic body?" Gerry shrieked. Emmy couldn't help but snort a little.

"It isn't funny!" he snapped, voice cracking a little from the panic. She just burst out laughing.

"He ended up…haha… having a fork fight…ah…with Patrick…"

Groaning, Gerry shook his head. "I can't believe this. What else did he do in my body?"

"What did you do in his?" she challenged with a smirk. He scoffed.

"Nothing! I just went around trying to figure out how to get out of his body. Honestly, who the hell would want to BE Erik?"

"Maybe he doesn't want to be you either!"

"Don't be stupid, guys would kill to be me," Gerry retorted as if this was the most obvious fact the world. After noticing Emmy's amusedly shocked face, he added, "How I am now, anyway. Who doesn't want to be paid an insane amount to play famous leading roles in movies and make out with hot women in almost all of them?"

"Am I considered a hot woman then?"

"Ye—well, that's kind of a loaded question."


	23. An Excited Emmy

**AN: Sorry for the later update. Ah, if you have guesses about the voices, feel free to tell me but I can't tell you if you are right or not. I can't ruin the surprise now! **

CHAPTER 23

Erik was having trouble letting go of the kiss when Emmy started pulling away. That is, until she jumped back with a gasp and literally shoved him away.

Shocked and hurt at her reaction, he impulsively snapped, "What? You dared me to do it!"

Emmy was quickly scooting away until she hit the wall, staring at him with wide eyes and almost hyperventilating.

"What? Emmy, what's wrong?" Erik asked, a little panicked. Her eyes darted everywhere and she started to curl up into a ball.

"Where am I?"

Erik stopped breathing. "Christine?"

Her eyes flitted back towards his and she nodded. "Which one are you?"

"You mean am I Gerry or Erik?" he asked.

"Yes, which one?" she snapped impatiently.

"Erik! I am Erik!"

They just stared at each other for a few silent seconds.

"Amazing…" she murmured to herself, almost reaching out and touching his face but she withdrew her hand quickly, feeling as if she had insulted him by pointing out the difference between him and Gerry. He just sighed.

"Yes, I know, what life could have been….but Christine….how are you here?"

Sighing, she started to explain. "Every time you and Emmy, um…kiss, Gerry and I feel it on the other side. We supposed that it meant something, since that is what swapped you in the first place, so we tried doing it at the same time to swap you back. As you can see, that plan backfired."

Erik slapped his palms to his forehead and slowly dragged them down, groaning. "Fantastic….now it will be the blind leading the blind! I could barely do day-to-day activities in this world without Emmy helping me…"

"Gerry was rather helpless himself," she remarked when she felt a small pang of jealousy.

"Well, I'll try my best to explain how this world works before someone comes and lets us out of this room," Erik sighed. "So, first off—"

Christine cut him off. "Where are we? And why are we trapped here?"

"This is called a break room. It's a place where people go to socialize and eat when they aren't working. Those glowing machines provide food in individual wrappers, and cold, sweet drinks contained in cans. It's quite fascinating….anyway, Someone locked Emmy and I in here. We didn't see who it was….I suspect that it was the woman who is playing the role of our dear Madame Giry…she's been behaving rather oddly."

Christine nodded but looked rather unnerved. "Gerry didn't tell me much about this world….when I asked questions, he could hardly explain how things worked."

"I'm attempting to figure everything out myself, and honestly, I can't explain most of the modern devices either. Except for the writing utensils…" Erik said, holding up the pieces of the pen he had used to unlock the vending machine minutes before.

So, wishing to calm her down with some simple conversation, he started explaining how pens work. At first the randomness annoyed Christine, (but as it turns out, ball point pens are pretty fascinating to people from the 19th century.) Then, he went to the machine (as he explained that normally, one has to pay for food but he had oh so cleverly defeated the system) and let her try the astoundingly unhealthy modern snack food. The soda made her grimace, but the chocolate she could get used to.

"Can you explain how filming works?" Christine asked.

"I only wish I could. All I know is that these cameras, similar to the cameras for photographs that we know, capture movement and sound and play it back. I think they take hundreds of photographs in a single moment and when they are put together, it shows the whole scene. But that is just my theory. I believe our part of the acting and filming process has already been finished, so you may not even have to worry about that."

She leaned her head against the wall and sighed, looking at the ceiling. "Then what must I worry about?"

"Everything else, I'm afraid."

"Elaborate."

"Well, your relations to people. You have to make them believe you are still Emmy. I've had a hard time with acting like my own doppelganger, since he is my polar opposite in personality, but I believe you won't have that much trouble, since you both are naturally so amiable to others. I just have to teach you some of the modern dialect so more people don't become suspicious…." Erik said.

"What is the modern dialect, then?"

He thought a moment. "Well, people in this era hardly ever say 'yes', especially those young as yourself, so if you replace that with 'yeah' you will sound much more like Emmy. And always shorten sentences as much as possible. The language is rather simplistic here. For example, you would not say 'Pardon me, everyone, I have some things I must do, I will return in a few hours', you would say 'Hey guys, I got to go run some errands, but I'll be back later.'"

She frowned. "That sounds incredibly uneducated."

"I know. But that is how people speak now," Erik said regretfully. "So, the names of your coworkers are important to know too. The director—he'll be the older man with the half closed eyes calling you 'Emmy darling'—is Joel Schumacher…."

"Who actually wrote the story of our lives, though?" Christine asked, insanely curious.

"Well…he's dead. Long dead. But his story was far, far, different than our own lives. There is the same basic idea, a lot of the same occurrences, but um…well, I realized, it really could be worse."

"What do you mean?"

Erik was hesitant to tell her, but then figured if he had to return to his body, it was best that she knew it was not so bad in comparison. "There are many versions of our story. Most are horribly idiotic. You can't even imagine the stupidity of some of them….But they are all thought to be fictional. In the original novel….well, remember the rumors that Joseph Buquet told about what I looked like?"

"Yes…"

"They are actually true in that one. Completely skeletal, no nose, paper thin, yellow skin….And I can't say for sure, because I don't know my exact age, but the man is about twice as old as myself. And twice as mad."

Christine's eyes widened. "But…how can that be the original? Shouldn't we be the original, since we are the ones who really existed somewhere and are swapping bodies with our actors?"

"I don't know. Perhaps this happens in every film adaption. Perhaps, somewhere, there are alternate dimensions for each version…." He wondered aloud to himself, looking off into space as his mind wandered to the possibilities.

Christine took her head in her hands and shook it slowly. This was confusing her too much.

"Ah. And another thing you must consider very carefully," Erik said as he looked at her. "Is the seemingly never-ending question that Emmy and I—and probably you and Gerry—are facing every day: Which world do you want to stay in, and with who?"

"I've been trying to find the answer to that question for a while now…even before this whole ordeal."

/

Gerry attempted to give Emmy some pointers on making her way in the year 1871, but most of his tips were promptly ignored since her knowledge of the era far surpassed his. So as soon as she could hurry him along, they retreated back to the lair, since that was obviously the first thing she wanted to see.

"Everything is just like the movie…except it's all connected and doesn't have people with cameras running around…"

"Obviously…"

"Hey, don't judge my excitement, you've been here for over a week and I've been here for five minutes," Emmy retorted. Gerry just shrugged and made himself comfortable on the organ bench while she scurried around, picking up and examining everything in her sight.

"I didn't even get to look at all this stuff much when we were filming in here…I can't believe they put this much detail in it. Seriously, did anyone notice _this?_" she asked excitedly, holding up an extremely creepy clown doll.

He just smiled a little and shrugged, watching her continue to ransack the lair. At one point, something smashed and she looked around as if Erik might have seen her.

"Yeah, I wouldn't go around breaking his stuff if I were you," said Gerry with a yawn. She smiled sheepishly and pushed the broken pieces of what once was a figurine under a crimson drape, then loped over to him.

"Do you think Madame Giry will suspect anything if I talk to her?"

"Um..yes! And Nadir, and Raoul, and anyone else you talk to," Gerry said bluntly.

"Nadir? The Persian guy from the original book and some other versions?"

Gerry blinked. "Um…Sure. I don't know…."

"Erik discovered the internet and researched EVERYTHING about himself," Emmy explained. "He found some really weird stuff…and made me watch it. But some of it was good. Like the original with the Persian being the only sane one."

"Hm. Fascinating. Well, he pretty much hates me, I think," said Gerry dully.

"Why?"

He shrugged. "Hell if I know. Come on, we have to go tell the two loons that the 'spirits' are messing with us again…"


	24. Once again, Erik is Scheming

**AN: Thanks so much for the reviews! I'm thinking about trying to revise and publish The Voice and the Violin someday, and I'm fairly sure I don't need to worry about buying rights to the story from anyone, but if you do know of any legal trouble I could run into, please let me know.**

CHAPTER 24

Erik had been silently hoping that Emmy wouldn't point out that he could pick the lock to the door, but he was less worried now that Christine was in her place instead. She was too stressed to focus on anything such as that. Besides, where would she go if they did get out?

It was very strange to be in such close quarters with her again, especially having a natural conversation. They had talked before, of course, but it had never been so….not dramatic. Even though the subject they were currently on was a bit worrying.

"So, did you realize that Emmy wasn't me?"

Erik nodded. "Of course."

With a strangely mixed expression of disappointment and relief, Christine stated, "So you are in love with her."

Taken aback, Erik demanded, "What makes you think that?"

"You have kissed her. Twice."

_Can it be that….Christine is actually JEALOUS? The world really has turned upside down, hasn't it…? _thought Erik, shaking his head slowly.

"The first time, I was intoxicated. VERY intoxicated. I believe I had a duel of forks with Patrick."

"Duel of forks…?" Christine repeated, wanting to laugh but unable to envision the idea clearly enough to do so.

"Yes."

"But there was a second time," she said.

"She 'dared' me to do it. It was a game we were playing, and…well, I asked her if she enjoyed the drunken kiss and she said she wasn't sure, since I hadn't been in my right mind at the time…Then she challenged me to try it again."

"So she's in love with you, then?" Christine assumed. Looking up with a sigh, Erik attempted to explain.

"Here, a kiss doesn't mean love. It still can be very important and alter a relationship, but it doesn't guarantee anything. She might have just been curious."

Frustrated, she pressed on. "But you must feel something for each other."

His mind retreated into silent thought for a minute, contemplating the tangled mess that his feelings had become.

"I can't tell, honestly. It's hard to separate the two of you in my mind, at times. You share the same mesmerizing physical and vocal beauty that I immediately fell in love with. Of course, I can tell differences in your personalities, but it isn't so dramatic that I can't find both to be equally intriguing. As far as a deeper attachment, I don't know if she would cause me to feel something as strong as my love for you if I had never known you. I doubt I will ever find out…." He trailed off sadly, then looked up, more talking to himself by this point. "Love should be selfless and not beg for love back, but I can't ignore that if, hypothetically, I pursued her, I believe there would be a much greater chance of being loved in return. Not only because of this appearance, but in this world, I have no reason to repeat the…mistakes I've made…that she never personally experienced, but which ultimately drove you to hate me."

"I don't hate you," murmured Christine. Erik looked away.

"You don't love me either."

He said this with a slight glimpse of hope that she might prove him wrong. But instead, his statement was confirmed by Christine's silent, sad gaze. Just when he thought he would never have to feel such a pain ever again, Erik's heart was crushed once more.

/

What had started off as a search for the Persian and/or Madame Giry quickly turned into something similar to a conference in her office, with Gerry, Emmy, Nadir, Antoinette, Meg, and even Raoul (whom Nadir was watching very carefully) discussing the whole strange affair.

"How do I know you aren't all mad?" said Chagny, still unable to accept the situation.

"Since when do five people have the same delusion all at once?" Emmy responded annoyedly with a roll of her eyes.

"I don't know, it sounds a lot more possible than this alternate-dimension-body-swap rubbish you people are talking about!"

"Look. We brought you here because we were under the impression that you cared about Miss Daae. If you want her back, then for heaven's sake, help us," Nadir snapped.

Turning his gaze about the room, looking back at all the eyes that were on him, Raoul finally sighed in defeat.

"Fine. I'll believe it. But if you all are playing an elaborate joke on me, I swear…."

"Believe me, no one would go to that much trouble just to make you look like a fool," Antoinette quipped.

He just crossed his arms and waited for it all to be over.

"Well, Christine has most likely told Erik what we all have to do in order to swap bodies. We can only guess who is going to end up being here, however…" said Gerry.

"I think we should wait until we feel them initiating the swap," Emmy commented, examining some of the objects on Madame Giry's desk. She had been picking up and fiddling with almost every object she came across since she had arrived, making it obvious how giddy she was to actually be living in 1871.

"But who knows how long that is going to take," Gerry pointed out. "I don't know for sure, but I can guess that they're probably a lot less comfortable making out with each other than we are."

Emmy frowned. "I disagree—to them the age difference isn't nearly as awkward, and they actually have feelings for eachother."

"They do?!" Raoul blurted out, but immediately sunk back in his seat when everyone was staring at him yet again. Emmy was really starting to pity him.

"Well, if you're wondering how it all ends in the movie and probably would have really ended if not for the swap, you win," she said casually. He was very confused at this point.

"But she chose him to save my life….and you just said she had feelings for him…"

Gerry tried to explain. "Well, we don't actually say that anywhere in the movie, it's just sort of left up to the viewers to interpret that…anyway, the reason she gets to live happily ever after with you and all that is because Erik lets her go."

This left the Vicomte flabbergasted. "Why the hell would that monster just give up like that?"

"_Because…_ he loves her and wants her to be happy," Emmy replied, trying her best not to show her irritation, but somewhat failing. Raoul looked down, thinking very hard and trying to comprehend this.

"So…you're trying to tell me that he actually has feelings. Real feelings like love."

At this, everyone nodded. He just sank back in his seat, feeling defeated yet again.

_I'm never going to understand this, am I? _

_/_

"Oh God. Erik—"

"Don't…say…a word…"

"No, don't tell me to be silent. You're going to listen because you completely misunderstood me!"

Christine wasn't sure, but she could guess that normally nothing this assertive would have escaped her lips had she not been around Gerry so long. Her guess was confirmed by Erik's sarcastic look of surprise.

"Oh…this…this should be interesting."

Even with the hope that he had a few moments ago concerning Emmy, that simple, wordless rejection from Christine still forced stinging tears to his eyes. He even expected this outcome, he tried not to think about how he would handle it, but here he was, crying against his will and making an utter fool out of himself. He stood quickly, turning away from her so she wouldn't see any more than she already had.

"My feelings don't have to be one extreme or the other for you to believe them, do they?" she snapped. "Because believe it or not, just because I don't hate you doesn't mean I love you…and just because I love you doesn't mean that it's in the way that you want me to."

Erik couldn't decide whether to be relieved or saddened even further by this. "What are you saying?"

"I'm saying that I do not feel the same way that you feel about me. What you do goes against everything I have ever been taught is right and good, and you have caused so much pain. I think I can understand why you did those things. And I forgive you for it, but I can't forget it. I could never live the rest of my life running from everyone I care about, and I could never marry a murderer. It would be on my conscious forever. But I care for you enough to say that I love you. I want nothing more than for you to be happy. I just…can't give you what you want."

Closing his eyes, Erik tried to calm himself enough to at least slow his breathing but it was in vain. He turned back around and looked down at her.

"If I never killed Buquet…if you never fled to the roof…"

"I don't know, Erik. Maybe. If one thing had changed and if we were different, maybe things would be different. But what's done is done. And you can't turn back time."

At this, he gasped. Turn back time. Yes... If swapping bodies in alternate dimensions was possible, then who knew what else was possible?

_But what about Emmy?_

He shrugged that thought off. He'd consider that later. For now, he had some swapping to do. Looking over at Christine, less nervous than he thought he would be about what was going to happen, he smiled apologetically.

"Christine, I'm sorry about this, but just trust me," he said quickly before pulling her to her feet and kissing her.

/

"Ow! There it is!" Gerry hissed, being knocked back against the wall by the sensation. Emmy gasped and clutched at her heart as if to keep it from jumping out of her chest.

"Obviously, they want to swap back!" Gerry said. Emmy shook her head and backed up as he started coming closer. Everyone else watched with a mix of amusement and shock (and in Raoul's case, horror).

"No, wait, they'll try again! Gerry, come on, I've only been here for a few hours!"

He didn't even bother explaining. He just grabbed her, tried to pretend it was rehearsal (but ended up thinking of Christine for some reason) and forced the body-swapping kiss. As expected, the twisting, warping sensation flooded his being for what seemed like both a split second and forever, wiping away any coherent thought for the duration of the experience.

Quickly praying that he would be back in his own body, Gerry finally opened his eyes.

It was dark. Except for some glowing boxes. Vending machines. Gasping happily, he staggered back and laughed in triumph.

"I'm back!"

/

Erik was hoping to find himself back in his lair, but instead he found himself surrounded by people. A situation he had NEVER enjoyed, but especially in his own, imperfect body.

Glaring at all of them accusingly, he fixed his eyes on the most hated person there: Chagny.

"What the hell are you doing here?" he hissed, then looked back at everyone else. "What the hell are ANY of you doing here?"

"He's back," said Madame Giry simply. As if anyone didn't realize that.

"And which one are you?" Erik softly asked the girl in front of him.

"Emmy."

"Ah. Good. I wouldn't want to give away the surprise to Christine if she were here instead…"

"What surprise?" demanded Raoul, quietly loading a pistol under the table. Erik just rolled his eyes.

"None of your damn business, that's what."

He turned back to Emmy. "Have they figured out what's causing all of this madness yet?"

"It's spirits!" Madame Giry declared. Erik looked at her with narrowed eyes.

"Spirits…?"

"Yes, we called upon them and heard several male voices, some laughing, some wishing to help us but unable to, some indifferent…but they have caused it. We still don't know the motive," Madame Giry said.

Erik nodded slowly. "Do these spirits know anything about turning back time?"

Nadir snorted. "Well, obviously, you, Gerry, Christine, and Emmy keep traveling over 133 years…."

"No, daroga, that is an entirely different dimension, we never existed in their world," Erik said impatiently. "I _mean…_do they know anything about turning back time just a few months in THIS world, here and now."

"We don't know, we never asked," said Khan with a shrug.

"We kind of already have enough to worry about as it is," Emmy said. "Why do you want to go back in time here anyway?"

"Personal reasons," Erik said curtly. Raoul stood up.

"You want to go back so you can change something so Christine will love you, don't you?"

Glaring daggers at the boy, Erik snapped back, "If you don't recall, the last I remember of being here, she was choosing me already."

"That's what you would like us to think, isn't it? I've already been informed of what was going to happen, had all this supernatural rubbish never happened. You were going to give her up! She and I could have gone on with our lives!"

_How could he know-Emmy…._Erik thought, turning his head around and facing her.

"Why did you tell him?!"

"He was confused and upset so Gerry and I explained the whole thing to him. I didn't think it mattered!"

Sighing, Erik said, "Alright…just remove him from my sight and let's call on these 'spirits', shall we?"

**AN: Sorry for not leaving everyone with their original partners for too long, Erik and Christine just did what they do best and sped up the drama.**


	25. Poor Raoul

**AN: Thanks again guys. I'd like to get a really good estimate of which couple everyone is rooting for, so if you'll vote at the poll on my profile page, I'd really appreciate it. Better yet, do that and leave a review/PM stating why. **

CHAPTER 25

Christine's first instinct was to either violently push away or slap the man, but she caught herself just in time at the realization of the swap.

_Why did Erik suddenly want to leave?_

"Ah….hi Christine," greeted Gerry with a pained smile as he tried to crack his neck. "That damn time portal or whatever is a bitch…"

"What's going on over there? How is everything?" Christine asked immediately.

"Oh. Well, pretty much everyone you know, aside from the managers and Carlotta and stuff, are having this meeting in Madame Giry's office….convincing Raoul is still as impossible as ever, but especially when Emmy showed up in your body…."

"Erik is in the same room with Raoul?!" she panicked. This made Gerry snicker and shrug.

"I guess so. Too bad I don't get to see the brawl."

"It's not funny, they're going to kill eachother!"

He scoffed and sauntered over to her. "I wouldn't worry about that, if I were you. You aren't there to show off for, it's just Emmy. Plus, I can see Madame Giry keeping them in line."

"Just Emmy…just Emmy…well, apparently she's become more important to Erik than you think—possibly even Raoul as well!"

"Eh…no. They seem kind of annoyed with eachother, if anything," Gerry corrected her, then asked, "What do you mean she's become important to Erik?"

"Well, obviously, you and I know what he keeps doing…"

"Oh…right. But from what I heard, it was just a drunken kiss and then a dumb truth or dare game. Doesn't mean they care about eachother that way," Gerry shrugged it off outwardly. Inside, he had been worried about those two that since the first time they realized what that knock-back sensation meant. He couldn't quite say it was just a natural protectiveness for a young, defenseless girl, but he definitely didn't want to think that it was anything more than that. He was 17 years older than her, for God's sake.

"He said it's hard to decide how he feels because she and I are so similar—"

Gerry interrupted her with a snort. "I beg to differ."

She gave him an irritated look then continued, "But he can tell the difference. He and I have…well, quite a history. He spent the past nine or ten years focusing on my well being, my career, my voice…and then what he wanted from me. But your world and all the newness of it draws him in, as well as the newness of their…friendship. I can assume their relationship is much less strained. But most of all, he's torn because the likelihood of him being loved back. I told him, straightforward, that I do want him to be happy, but I can never be happy WITH him."

"Then why doesn't he just go on and go after Emmy, then?"

"Because he believes that love is selfless. Simply pursuing the one who is more likely to love you in return, even if you aren't sure you love them, is a cowardly thing to do."

Gerry thought about this. That did make sense. He could see why Erik might be confused.

"Well…maybe we should just let each other spend some time together…to figure things out. On an…uh…emotional level, I mean."

Eyes downcast, deep in thought as well, she nodded in agreement. "I can assume the next time a simultaneous kiss happens, Emmy and I will swap and we will all be in the right place. But I don't want to go home just yet."

"Oh, you should see Emmy. She's fangirling all over the place."

Christine gave him a strange look and he elaborated with a sigh. "She's very excited about being in your world. People only dream of being able to go back in time."

At that, her face went blank as she remembered. "I was just saying something about turning back time when Erik suddenly kissed me in order to leave….why would he do that?"  
Gerry shrugged. "I have no idea. I've never even met the man. I just play him."

/

Meg ended up having to escort Raoul outside, seeing as he was not one to be left out of an important conversation—at least, by himself. And Meg, being skittish of the séance that was about to take place, could easily sacrifice her curiosity for some time spent with the Vicomte.

Before he started on any rant about Erik, she decided to bring up something else that might be beneficial to her.

"You know, I talked to Christine some before Emmy swapped into her body."

As expected, this sparked his interest.

"You did? What did she say? What did you talk about? Just tell me everything."

So, little Giry started retelling as much of the conversation as she could remember…with a few exaggerations concerning Christine's 'affections' for Mr. Butler. But she did manage to point out Christine's final decision regarding Erik.

"Unless, of course, he succeeds in that time-turning theory of his…in which case, he could manipulate life so that I may not have ever even met Christine!"

Meg pursed her lips and looked away. "Perhaps…but he doesn't even have a solid plan on how to change time, aside from talking to these so-called spirits, whom I assume aren't willing to do favors for any of us."

This seemed to give Raoul some sense of security. But not much, as now he was worried about this actor from the future as well.

"So…she fancies him?"

"She didn't officially SAY so…but…"

"You could tell."

Meg shrugged and nodded. He groaned.

"Fantastic. Just what I need. When Christine has finally broken away from Erik, his bloody future doppelganger comes back to finish the job of twisting her mind and ruining my life!"

"Well…I must disagree with you. Gerry doesn't seem to care half as much as Erik does. In fact, he doesn't seem to be making any effort at all to obtain her favor. But she is charmed by him, nonetheless. He's a rather charismatic person, from what I hear."

"Am I not?"

Meg shook her head a little too quickly. "No, no, you're very likeable! I can't think of any woman who wouldn't wish to be with you."

Raoul narrowed his eyes at her eager answer but said nothing about it aside from a quiet word of thanks. Biting her lip, knowing she had said far too much, Meg went silent.

Meanwhile, Madame Giry had formed the séance circle again, excluding Nadir as usual. This time, the voices spoke up much more quickly.

"Back again, are we?"

"Hello, hello…"

Erik thought very hard, trying to recognize the voices but failing to recall anything. So he went straight for his question.

"Can you turn back time in this dimension?"

The voices were silent for a while before an annoyed, British accented voice replied.

"What kind of stupid question is that?"

Emmy giggled a little bit and Erik shot her a look before speaking again. "I want to stay here, but go back about six months or so in my own life. Is that possible?"

"Well, yes, but you would just go back, as you were before, and do exactly the same things over and not even know about it. It would be rather pointless," said a softer male voice. Erik grit his teeth in frustration.

"So there is no hope for me."

A maniacal voice cackled. "Of course there is hope for you, you fool! Why would we do this if there was no hope for you?"

Erik snapped, "Why would you do this, PERIOD?"

"All shall be clear when all is said and done!" chuckled a lower voice darkly.

"When all is rearranged yet in its rightful place, all shall see!"

"What does that mean? Will you lunatics please just say something that makes sense?" Erik rudely shot back, and Emmy squeezed his hand tightly as if to tell him to shut up.

"What he means is, can you elaborate a little?" Emmy asked the voices politely.

The nicer of the men's voices replied regrettably, "I am sorry, my dear, as we said before, you must simply figure it out for yourse-"

Another voice cut him off with an excited whisper, "Except, IF there is something to figure out. You may have already done so, or there may not have been a point to this at all!"

At this point, Erik was close to banging his head against the table in frustration.

"Don't hurt yourself, my boy!" said one of the voices amusedly. Emmy chuckled, not knowing the voices could see what they were doing as well as hear them. Erik just rolled his eyes.

"Well, if that is all you have to say…" Madame Giry trailed off, and Erik nodded, unclasping his hand from hers and Emmy's, breaking the circle and therefore the connection.

"When I find out who these spirits are, I'm bringing them back to life so I can kill them myself."


	26. In Which Christine Becomes a Pillow

**AN: Thanks again, everyone. Remember to vote if you haven't already!**

**CHAPTER 26**

It was around midnight and Gerry was starting to get tired, but Christine, of course, was wide awake. And asking a million questions, making sure she knew the name of everyone Emmy knew and how she should act around them, as well as what to do with common modern devices. Gerry surprised himself with the amount of patience he had with her, calmly explaining everything she asked. When she could think of no more questions about the time period, or basic information about Emmy's life, Christine started asking about Gerry's life.

"Have you always been famous?"

He snorted. "Hell no. I was pretty much at the bottom of the barrel for a long time."

"What does that mean?"

Sighing, he said, "I had an alcoholic, depressed stage through most of my twenties. I kind of attempted suicide a few times but never did anything that would definitely kill me, because I wasn't really determined to die. I just didn't care if I did or not. Eh…I think I got kicked off a cruise ship at one point because I was hanging off the edge of it by my knees, drunk off my ass, singing 'We are Sailing'…."

Christine giggled quietly at this mental image and he shook his head, grinning sheepishly. "Yeah. I was pretty pathetic."

More seriously, she asked him, "Well, what drove you to becoming that way?"

He shrugged. "A variety of things, I guess. But mainly it was because my father just died."

Christine's eyes widened at this, immediately feeling strong sympathy. "I'm so sorry."

"Well, I actually didn't meet him until I was 16 because he up and left when I was a baby. When we met again, I thought I would hate him afterwards…you know, for abandoning us, but instead I kind of clung to him. Six years later, he died. It was too soon. I didn't know him long enough."

She nodded, looking down sadly. He glanced over to her.

"Sorry. Didn't mean to just spill my whole life story to you."

Shaking her head, her eyes moved up to meet his. "No, I don't mind."

Going silent for a moment as he noticed her eyes were ever so slightly glistening, he thought. _Guess she can relate…no wonder this dead dad talk is getting to her. Damn it, now I've made her depressed too….Better cheer her up then._

"So…I bet fame is less demanding in the 19th century, hm?" he asked unsurely, wanting to beat himself over the head right after saying it.

_Lame, lame, LAME!_

Apparently, Christine didn't mind the random subject change. "Well, perhaps, since the media is much less accessible and less widespread than you say it is here…but it still is rather stressful, because I always sing in front of a live audience. I see their reactions as I perform. There is always the chance, however small it may be, that something will go wrong, or that they will be displeased and humiliate me."

"Ah…yeah, that is kind of scary. I started out with stage roles, so…I know."

"You did? They still have stage roles?"

Gerry chuckled. "Yes, everything isn't COMPLETELY taken over by technology. People still appreciate live theatre."

This seemed to comfort her a little. Yawning, Gerry took off his jacket and spread it out on the cold tile floor before flopping down on it. Christine watched him in amusement as he tried to get comfortable on it.

"Is it bed time already?" she asked, covering her almost laughing face with her hand.

"Yes! Don't you ever sleep?"

Shrugging, she shook her head. "Not much, as of late."

"Then I think it's about time for you to catch up on it," he muttered, finally settling on his back, as it was the only way to not feel as if the floor was digging into his skin.

"Ah, alright, alright."

Christine stood and went to the other corner of the break room, awkwardly trying to settle down on the floor as well. Watching her, Gerry sighed in mild annoyance.

"What are you doing?"

She gave him one of her famous innocent, doe eyed expressions. "Just going to sleep, like you told me to."

He rolled his eyes. "I mean, why did you go all the way over there?"

"Um…I…uh…"

"Come here," he said simply, waving her over as if calling back a dog that had strayed away. Hesitantly, she stood and approached him, stopping a few feet away then laying back down again.

Only mildly horrified that a woman didn't immediately want to cozy up to him, Gerry decided he'd do the rest of the work himself and inched up closer to her until her shoulder became a nice makeshift pillow for him.

"What are you doing?" she said as bluntly as he had before. He didn't budge.

"Using you as a heating pad and pillow, what does it look like?"

"Gerry. I'm a person."

"Silly Christine, pillows don't talk…" he murmured, eyes closed as if he was half asleep but still grinning. Pushing him off her shoulder (at which, he whined pitifully) Christine rolled over on her side, away from him—mainly so he wouldn't have the satisfaction of seeing her smile. It only took about 2.5 seconds before he was back to snuggling up against her.

"Alright, alright, if anyone is going to be used as a pillow, it's you," she finally said, turning over and resting her head on his chest. This arrangement Gerry could live with.

"Me, pillow, you, heating pad. Eh, close enough."

/

Erik was still furiously pacing in the office, trying desperately to figure out who the voices are and what they wanted.

"It's obvious how we get back in our original bodies, just one more kiss and you and Christine will swap back, but how do we stop the cycle from happening?"

Emmy shrugged. "Avoid kissing?"

He shot her a look but didn't answer, just kept pacing and thinking. Madame Giry sighed and stepped forward.

"I think it is more imperative for everyone to decide where and who they want to be before we attempt to decipher the point of all of this."

"This all is still pretty fascinating to me, so I don't want to go back that soon, but I can't stay here forever. I have my own family and friends to think about," said Emmy honestly.

"And I'm sure you all can figure out which body I would rather be in," Erik muttered.

"But with whom?" Nadir asked quietly.

Turning back to look at his friend, Erik noticed everyone's eyes were fixed on him. He was silent for a long moment before shrugging and looking at Emmy.

"Well, seeing as I can't turn back time and change the fact that I ruined my chances with Christine forever, I suppose I'm stuck with you."

He didn't mean this seriously, but Erik was never good with humor. In an instant, Emmy had stormed out, almost hitting Raoul and Meg outside with the swinging office door. They stared at her in shock but made no move to follow her.

"What was that all about? What did he do?" wondered the Vicomte aloud (automatically assuming the cause of any lady's distress was Erik's fault, of course.)

"I have no idea…"

They stood and entered the office to do what Madame Giry and Nadir were already doing: simultaneously giving Erik the most disapproving of scowls.

/

"This is…interesting."

Christine jumped to her feet at the familiar voice. Gerry didn't even budge. It took her a moment to register that the man in the doorway was merely an actor, not her fiancé. Feeling stupid, as she knew he had caught them asleep together on the floor, she quickly explained.

"Someone locked us in here."

Patrick gave her a strange look. "Who?"

"We don't know…"

Gerry, remembering what Emmy had told him outside the torture chamber, groggily muttered, "It was Miranda…"

"Miranda? Why would she do something like that?" Patrick asked.

"I don't know!" Gerry sighed, forcing himself to sit up.

"Well…you do realize you guys aren't supposed to be on set anymore, right?"

Christine looked confused. Gerry slapped his palm to his forehead and groaned.

"Damn…I missed my flight…"

The Victorian lady was compelled to ask what he meant by that but kept quiet in Patrick's presence.

"Yeah, I have one scheduled tomorrow. I just have to do one last bit today," said Patrick, who then checked his watch. "If you don't need anything, I should probably be getting ready for that scene now, so…later."

With that, he was out the door and out of sight. Christine looked at Gerry.

"Flight?"

"I'll explain later. We have to get packing for now."

As it turned out, Gerry ended up packing for both of them, since Christine knew nothing about Emmy's belongings, let alone where to put them in a suitcase. Gerry barely knew himself, but he had a slightly better grasp of the idea. As he packed, he attempted to explain how airplanes work to Christine. She looked terrified. When he found Emmy's phone, which had about fifty missed calls, he inwardly cringed.

"Oh, Emmy's mom is probably flipping out as we speak…you'd better call her. This is a cell phone, by the way. It's a communication device. I'll dial the number, it'll ring, just ignore that, then you'll hear her voice, and you just sound like a good little daughter and say that you got locked in a break room and missed your flight. Then say I'm helping you schedule a new one today. Can you do that?"

Christine hesitantly nodded, feeling uncomfortable with this but she knew it had to be done. So, Gerry found Mrs. Rossum's number and dialed it, then held it up to Christine's ear. She bit her lip and wrung her hands nervously as it rang, then gasped a little when she heard a hysterical female voice.

"_EMMY! Why haven't you answered my calls?! Why aren't you HERE?! What's happened? Are you alright?!"_

"I-I'm fine, I just missed my flight because I got…locked in the break room. I don't know who did it…" Christine answered timidly.

"_Oh honey, I'm sorry…you didn't have your phone with you?"_

Gerry shook his head and Christine took the hint and said, "No…I'm sorry. But I'm rescheduling a…a flight today. I will be home as soon as possible. Please don't worry."

He nodded to show her answer was acceptable. Apparently, Mrs. Rossum thought so too.

"_Good, good. I'm so happy you're okay! I was worried sick…"_

She went on for this for about ten minutes, like any typical mother. Gerry just continued packing and Christine held the phone awkwardly, just listening until Mrs. Rossum finally stopped herself.

"_I'm sorry, you should be getting ready. Is someone helping you with the tickets and everything?"_

"Um…yes, Gerry is."

At his name, Gerry turned around with wide eyes, worried that he would sound like a creeper or something to an overprotective mother.

But Mrs. Rossum just said, _"Oh. That's nice of him. Well, I should let you go, then, sweetie. Can't wait to see you! I love you." _

"I love you too…goodbye," said Christine unsurely, quickly giving Gerry the phone. He hit the 'End' button for her.

"Gerry…am I going to be flying to New York all alone?" Christine asked pitifully. He hesitated.

"Um…"

It was impossible to resist such an innocent, helpless expression—especially paired with big brown doe eyes.

"Agh. Fine. I'll go with you."


	27. Sopranos On A Plane

**AN: I know, I know, you're probably freaking out because you thought I had stopped writing this and you just COULDN'T GO ON without reading the rest, right? RIGHT?! Yeah…sorry about that. I was on another vacation. Didn't have time to update and tell everyone. But I wrote in a binder during my trip there so I actually have done a lot of writing—more than what's included in this chapter.**

**There was a request to see more drunk Erik—though you won't see that again, since it would be a bit redundant, you WILL see something of that nature in this next chapter…not with Erik, though. Oh but if you just love seeing crazy drunken/high Erik, then follow my phantomy twitter account ComplexStalker**

**Thanks for being patient with me (or impatient, whatever, as long as you're still reading) and I hope you like what I've come up with! **

**CHAPTER 27**

In any other situation, a seven hour flight to New York, along with explaining to Mum why he wasn't coming back to Paisley for an unknown amount of time, would at the very least cause Gerry to have a migraine. Sure, he had a moral obligation to escort a poor, clueless Victorian woman trapped in his teenage coworker's body safely through the modern world. But honestly, he was looking forward to the trip—even if Christine still hadn't even gotten used to women wearing pants (still, she was more compliant about modern clothes than Erik had been with poor Emmy.)

After their goodbyes to the people they were actually fond of, they ran into none other than Miranda. Gerry cut to the chase.

"Why the hell did you lock us in the break room?"

She raised a brow cooly. "Excuse me?"

"Someone trapped us inside the break room all night and you were the one who kept us after hours, so he believes it was your doing," Christine said.

Miranda smiled mysteriously. "Of course it was me, Christine."

The girl's eyes widened and Gerry stammered. "How do you know…"

"The ones who swapped you were becoming bored, so they instructed me to cause some amusement for them—they're watching, you see…" said Miranda, as if it were obvious.

"Who ARE they?!" Gerry demanded. The older woman remained calm as always.

"I am not permitted to tell you. I expect you will find out soon enough," she said before walking past them.

"Wait! Are you really Mrs. Richardson?" Christine asked, following. The woman stopped and turned slowly.

"Of course I am, dear girl," she said sweetly. "Who else would I be?"

With that, she went on her way. Gerry and Christine both figured it would be pointless to ask more.

"Crazy old bint…her and Giry both…" he muttered, then took Christine's arm. "Come on, let's go."

Gerry happened to be well prepared for a panic attack on Christine's part, as he had some powerful mood stabilizers (a formerly depressed man doing an emotionally stressful acting role needs strong stuff, you know.) At first, she seemed only nervous—as usual—with the hustle and bustle of the airport with all it's strange devices and miniature restaurants, but once they boarded the plane, she became genuinely fearful.

"I promise you, flight has been around for like a hundred years now and they take EXTREME precautions. Remember that security check?"Gerry asked, hoping to assure her.

Christine still couldn't quite wrap her mind around the idea of a machine seeing through her body via X-ray vision. But that was the least of her worries.

"What if an engine fails? What if the captain passes out? What if we go into the sea? How high are we going to be flying anyway—"

"Christine, just take one of these, you'll feel better," said Gerry finally, giving her a pill discretely. Trusting as always, she took it.

By the time the takeoff began, she was staring out the window with a most peaceful yet exhilarated grin on her face. She looked like a child that had just discovered a candy filled kingdom in her backyard.

"We're flying, Gerry," she giggled cheerfully.

Gerry was reminded of _Titanic _yet again.

"Have you ever been to America before?" she asked him.

"Many times."

"Is it as wonderful as they say?"

"It's highly overrated. You'll probably love it."

Not taking any offense to this statement, Christine chuckled and asked, "Why is that?"

"Well, everything is much newer, there isn't as much history. Like in Paris, you have things like…er…I don't know, Notre Dame. That's centuries old. And back in London…and Scotland…and all of Europe, it's kind of the same. So the general attitude of Americans is much more ambitious and shallow and flashy and fast paced…"

Christine was back to staring out the window in awe of the clouds. Gerry sighed.

_I'll remember to keep my sentences shorter while she's on this stuff. _

Pretty soon the stewardess came around offering comforts like pillows or hot towels. Christine seemed so delighted at the prospect of being served like this that Gerry asked for one of the towels, as well as some gin for himself. The middle aged stewardess readily gave him both, leaning over a bit unnecessarily which gave him a rather good view of her cleavage.

"You look familiar…" she said smoothly. "Were you on the tele?"

"Er, a long time ago, yeah. I've been in a few movies, so…"

The woman gasped happily. "Oh I remember you from that Dracula film!"

He smiled a bit sheepishly when several (mostly female) faces turned to stare at him.

"What's your name?" asked the stewardess.

"Gerard. Gerard Butler."

She obviously didn't remember the name so instead she said, "I'd never forget such a handsome face…"

He laughed a bit and shrugged. "Thanks…"

"And who's this?" asked the woman, looking at a beaming Christine.

"This is, uh, Emmy Rossum," said Gerry. The girl shook her head slowly.

"No, I'm…I'm Christine…"

"Er, what she means is that it's her role," Gerry explained quickly, then whispered to the woman, "She's afraid of flying so she's on some meds, don't mind her…"

"Oh, not at all. What film are you two doing?"

"We've just come back from filming _The Phantom of the Opera. _Movie version of the stage show, you know."

The smile on the woman's face was enough of a sign to indicate her love of the musical, and she probably would have gone on a 'phampage' about it had she not been called out at that moment.

"Oy, I need some vomit bags over here!" snapped someone from the Coach section. With a rushed apology and a last excited smile at Gerry, the stewardess scurried away.

Christine had covered her face with the hot towel, breathing through it and giggling quietly to herself. Only then did Gerry noticed his glass of gin had been drunk.

"Oh God…"

_Why didn't the bloody woman say something when I said Christine was on medication? Unless Christine just now gulped it down…hm. Impressive if she did...No, stop. Focus, Gerry! This is really bad!_

Within five seconds, Christine was singing.

**AN: Sorry it was short, this is all I had time for and the next section was HUGE so…sorry again. I feel terrible, really. But I will make it up to you, I promise! **

**And since I'm rude and have no social skills, I will ask that you at least check out the twitter account ComplexStalker . I'm pretty sure you'll like it. **


	28. More Classy Boozing

CHAPTER 28

Nadir took it upon himself to look for Emmy outside of the opera whilst Madame Giry, not trusting Erik's 'Emmy finding' skills, searched the building again. Mostly, Khan just wanted an excuse to get away from the madness. But finding the girl was important too.

Paris at sunset was rather beautiful, with dusky pink skies streaked with whispy golden clouds, and in the streets, considerably less people at such an hour. Those who did roam the city seemed like mere shadows, blending in with the rosy evening light.

As he strolled, Nadir asked himself where a young girl would be drawn to if she had never explored the city before. Of course, landmarks and lady shops came to mind. So he visited everything from the grand cathedral of Notre Dame to a tiny perfume shop tucked away down an empty alleyway. It wasn't so much a desperate search as a long, curious walk.

Where he found Emmy was both unexpected and flaming obvious: A cheese shop.

She was sitting on a bench outside the shop, greatly enjoying a sample of Brie with a small bottle of wine (which Nadir assumed she acquired elsewhere.) Upon spotting him, Emmy waved excitedly. He approached her.

"This is amazing…" she said, pointing to the wine. Nadir looked down at her amusedly.

"I don't see why. It isn't the finest wine."

She shook her head. "Doesn't matter to me, back home, I couldn't have alcohol until I'm 21."

Nadir, being a Muslim, approved of this restriction but was surprised by it. "Interesting…"

He sat down next to her and looked at her with pity. "Erik upset you, didn't he?"

She tensed up for a moment but then shrugged, taking a sip of wine. "I should have seen it coming."

"I believe he meant it in jest…but Erik has never been good with humor."

"I noticed," said Emmy curtly, then continued onto nibble more cheese in silence. Nadir pressed on.

"I must ask you, why did such a statement offend you so?"

"I don't know, I thought he was serious, that I was just a last resort cure for his pathetic, lonely life…"

At this, Khan's jade eyes widened ever so slightly. "You seem bitter."

"Well, yeah, since he wasn't REALLY joking after all, when I think about it. We just had one conversation where he sounded as if I was more than a 'Christine clone' to him and even then, he wasn't sure," she huffed, ranting by this point. "You're friends with him! You'll know! Tell me how he works. What is going through his head?"

"Honestly, I don't know. He can not be understood. In this situation, you probably know more than I do about his thoughts and feelings. He certainly was more honest about such things with Christine than with me."

Emmy appeared frustrated with this answer but grit her teeth and said nothing. Ever the therapist, Nadir decided he had a moral oblication to help her sort out her emotions, which seemed like they had been forced down and hidden for a while now.

"I hope this question won't anger you further, and you don't have to provide an answer, but have you grown to…care for him in a way other than friendship?"

For a minute, it appeared as if she had chosen not to respond. Then, after another gulp of wine, she decided the Persian man was trustworthy enough to hear her secrets.

"In an insane way…yeah. I have. I already liked Gerry—what adolescent girl couldn't? So…maybe I had an Erik complex about the two. Hard to see the difference entirely. But I KNEW it would never, ever happen with Gerry. I mean…he's like a serial dater and he's twice my age!"

"As is Erik," Nadir pointed out. She bit her lip.  
"Yeah..but he doesn't see me that way, like a child. Well, not a child, Gerry didn't think of me that way either, we spent loads of time together like equals and friends but…doing anything more was just out of the question. Unthinkable for him probably. Totally taboo. Where I come from, it's barely legal."

"But it doesn't stop YOU from thinking about a man of that age in such a way?"

"Nah, all girls have crushes on famous older actors," Emmy said casually.

"Er..by crushes, you mean to say…?"

"Oh. Sorry. We _fancy _them, rather."

"I see…"

Emmy nodded. "But I'm way too young in Gerry's mind. But in Erik's…"

"He doesn't have an issue with it," Nadir finished. "So you see yourself as able to have a relationship with _him_ free of guilt."

She promptly turned red and shook her head quickly. "No, it's not just that, he…he just…well, he's just fascinating. For one thing, the man isn't even supposed to exist…"

"Nor am I…"

Emmy ignored this. "But it's not all. Alright, look, no one can deny that Erik is one of the most interesting people on the planet."

Nadir nodded admittedly, agreeing with her. She went on, now VERY chatty due to the wine, though she was hardly intoxicated.

" Then the realization hit him. A woman actually wished to be with Erik. Or at least, she thought she did.

He had to make sure.

"Might I mention that Erik killed three men, attempted to kill the Vicomte, and by destroying the chandelier, caused the death of an audience member?"

Emmy swallowed and looked away, biting her lip.

"I know, I know. It's just…since I wasn't actually there, I can't fully comprehend that it was real. And I haven't even experienced seeing him when he…" she trailed off, trying to find the right words.

Nadir helped her out.

"When he loses his mind entirely and goes on a rampage with sudden, murderous intentions?"

"Yes. That."

Emmy's mind wandered to the grim truth of the matter that Erik was indeed, a killer. She felt sick at the thought. But even so, she couldn't feel any fear. It was just unimaginable that he would harm HER. Or any woman, for that matter. She struggled to justify it.

"But…but the first man he killed—he HAD to! I mean, it was basically self defense, wasn't it? And after such a traumatic experience, it only makes sense that he would have a skewed perception of right and wrong…and he always has reasons, he thinks he's doing the right thing…like with Buquet, he had several reasons, I think…"

"It doesn't matter how many reasons one has, aside from self defense, as you said, murder is always inexcusable."

"But for him, forgivable. You remain his friend, don't you? You understand…"

Nadir looked down at the cobblestone street blankly, contemplating. She had a point.

"Yes. I understand why, and forgive him, though I do not at all condone his actions."

"And you want him to be happy?"

"Yes, of course I do. Not just as his friend, but because I expect his crime rate will drop dramatically if he finally has what he wants. What every soul needs."

For a long time, they were silent. Then Nadir stood.

"You're being missed, and it's getting dark. I'd better return you before…well, by now, any variety of disaster could be about to happen."

When they returned back to the opera, no one was in sight. But someone was within earshot. Two someones, actually. One was a giggling female. Both Nadir and Emmy assumed it was a ballet girl and perhaps a stagehand, so they went on their way, until Emmy glanced down the hallway and saw that it was Meg and Raoul, standing rather closely in a suspicious looking alcove but not touching. Apparently, Chagny had said something that Meg found hilarious, for she was still red when she turned to look at Emmy.

"Oh..heha…hello…you found her!" she gasped, trying to force herself to stop laughing.

"Yes, I did," said Nadir.

Emmy wanted to ask what was so funny, but then figured she might not want to know.

"Where is Erik?" she asked instead. Raoul shrugged uncaringly.

"Who knows. He just passed by us and gave us this smug little grin then disappeared."

Nadir groaned. A smug grin on Erik was never good.


	29. What Do You Want!

CHAPTER 29

Gerry had never felt more awkward. At the moment, he was having to physically hold down Christine so she wouldn't get up to do another 'performance' in the aisle—which was a very amusing Carlotta imitation. He also had to keep one hand over her mouth so as to muffle her singing (which, in her mixed drug and alcohol induced state, actually resembled the sound of a feline being strangled.) If the people around him hadn't been witness to her attempt at intoxicated opera, they might think she was being attacked. But as it was, they were glad to have Gerry restraining her.

"MmmMMPH!"

"Behave and I'll let go," he hissed quietly. For a moment, she just glared at him in silence. Just when he was about to remove his hand from her mouth, she bit him.

"Ow!"

He jerked his hand back and she laughed. He glared at her. She just gave him a woozy grin.

"I can not _wait _until I get off this damn plane…" he muttered. Giggling, she leaned her head on his shoulder.

"Did I huurrt youuu..?" she slurred.

"No."

She started petting his hair like he was some sort of dog.

"Poor, pooooorrr, Gerrrrrryyy…"

"Stop that!"

_Is this what I was like when I was always hammered? _He wondered silently, then decided he couldn't possibly be this bad. Plus, he hadn't taken pills too.

Christine was now attempting to climb inside his shirt. This he couldn't exactly complain about, aside from the old lady watching in amusement from across the aisle. He gave her an apologetic smile and pushed Christine off him.

"Don't be so rough, Erik…" she pouted.

"I'm not Erik," sighed Gerry with annoyance. She looked at him hard, as if trying to figure out a puzzle, then jumped back with a gasp.

"You fixed it!"

He raised a brow and dully asked, "Fixed what?"

She just pointed at his face with a wide eyed expression of awe and delight. Rolling his eyes, he looked away again, just waiting for it to be over. Then he felt her little arms wrap around him with her face buried in the crook of his neck. Christine was not to be ignored.

Her voice muffled against him, Christine drowsily asked, "Gerrrry…have you ever killed anyone…?"

He made a face. "Er…no. Not that I can remember."

"Ohhh…that's good…"

Chuckling a little, he replied, "Yeah, it's a small sort of accomplishment, I guess."

At this, she made an odd little noise similar to a purr. At this point, it was hardly surprising. Christine fell asleep in this position, practically sprawled on Gerry, and frankly, he couldn't say he could complain about it—aside from the fact that sleeping on the break room floor had been more comfortable than even first class airplane seats.

/

One does not simply find Erik. Erik finds you. And he does so with flair.

In this particular instance, he decided to leap from the rafters, cape stretched out like wings, and land on his feet directly in front of Emmy and Nadir, who were calmly walking backstage looking for him.

"Oh my God. It's Batman," Emmy drolled. Nadir gave her a strange look. Erik had to think a bit before remembering the reference from her time, then huffed, feeling insulted.

"What are you scheming, Erik?" Nadir demanded. Erik raised a brow in confusion at him.

"Not that it's any of your business, but I'm actually not planning anything."

"Raoul said you looked far too happy to not be," Emmy quipped, snorting a little. At the name, Erik grimaced.

"If he's referring to when I passed him and little Giry, that is only because I can see what is going on."

Nadir seemed clueless but Emmy frowned, knowing what he meant.

"What's going on?" asked Khan. Erik rolled his eyes.

"Isn't it obvious? Now that Christine isn't here and he doesn't seem particularly fond of _her_…" he trailed off, looking at Emmy. "The ballet girl is taking advantage of the situation."

"Meaning…?"

Emmy sighed and blurted, "He means that Raoul and Meg are forming a romantic relationship, Nadir!"

"Oh…but..How do you know? They were just talking. I think you are confusing your hopes with reality, Erik…"

Giving him an annoyed look, Erik snapped, "I'm not confused at all. I think after living here for twenty years and bearing witness to nonstop frivolous backstage relationships-most of which concerning silly ballet rats such as the Giry girl—would be enough of an education to tell when such a relationship is forming."

Nadir blinked then sighed and shrugged, not bothering to argue with him anymore. But Emmy needed more information.

Crossing her arms, she asked coolly, "So why is this good to you?"

Erik looked at her as if it was the stupidest question he'd ever heard. "I hate the man more than anyone else."

"Yes, so why are you happy to see him happy with someone else."

"Because he's not in my way anymore!" he said, exasperated.

"In your way to getting…?"

He hesitated. Now he could see where this was going.

_What's the right answer? Didn't she say I should know Christine better if I was ever to have hope of earning her love? Didn't she want me to be with Christine? But then…then that dare…it was so bold. She wanted me to kiss her. But why? And why was she so upset about my comment earlier? Dear God, it can't be…_

Swallowing nervously, he glanced at Nadir. "Will you excuse us?"

Khan nodded and gave a short bow before obediently leaving the backstage area. Erik fixed his eyes back on Emmy.  
"It's because I never wanted to see him again, and surely, with Meg, he would be a much less frequent visitor. It wasn't because of Christine, because I'm fairly sure she's enraptured with your Gerry by now, and won't wish to return even for her precious Vicomte, and it wasn't because of you, because Chagny hasn't shown any interest in you whatsoever thus far. There. Are you satisfied?"

Emmy stared at him blankly, not knowing how to feel, let alone what to say. Flustered, he continued.

"You know I hardly have any experience whatsoever with women in general, let alone ones from a bloody different dimension, so I can't read your mind! Please, just…What do you WANT?"

At first she was insulted, but then she looked away, biting her lip. Honestly, she didn't know the answer to that question. And she was sure he didn't know what he wanted either. What a predicament to be in.

/

"Christine, wake up…we're here," Gerry said quietly, nudging Christine off his shoulder (which had gone numb by now.) She barely opened her eyes, then groaned and held her head in both hands.

"It hurts…"

"What does?"

"The light!"

Gerry sighed and stood, pulling her to her feet. She tried to fall back in the seat. He held her up and looked into her half closed eyes, speaking to her like a child. "If you come with me, you'll get to see the Statue of Liberty."

As expected, Christine smiled like an excited little girl and followed him eagerly.

"I really hope this wears off before we find your mother…" he muttered to himself as he lead her through the airport, struggling with carrying both of their luggage and making sure she didn't leave his sight.

"My mother?" she asked, confused.

"Emmy's mother, rather," he corrected himself, then stopped and looked at her. "You remember that you're Emmy now, don't you?"

She furrowed her brows. "Of course I do," she snapped in such a clear American accent that he could believe she _was _Emmy.

"Fantastic. Now, just ignore the fact that you're drugged up and we should be good!"

Christine's staggered a bit when she walked and her mind was still slightly swimming. Every so often she saw double, but otherwise, if she really, really focused, she could think reasonably.

"Emmy!"

Gerry groaned to himself at the female voice, which he didn't recognize but was sure was the Rossum matriarch.


	30. Finally It Happens

**AN: FINALLY! I have it all sorted out nice and neat. Whew. If you go back to Chapter 26, there's an added section that explains the whole plane situation. Sorry for all the confusion!**

**Chapter 30**

Emmy's mother (who looked like a typical middle aged mom aside from her lack of plumpness) came rushing through the crowd at the sight of who she thought was her precious angel baby, lunging forward to give poor Christine a suffocating hug. Gerry just stepped aside and stayed quiet until the woman was done rambling about missing her daughter so much.

"Oh, hello!" Mrs. Rossum finally said to Gerry, giving him a not-so-subtle once over. He tried to ignore this and smiled back politely.

"Hello."

"I didn't know you were coming here too! Do you live in the city?" she asked excitedly.

"Ah, no, actually, I just figured I would be Emmy's bodyguard," he said, half teasing and half serious. Quickly, he added, "And I hadn't been to New York in a while, so…"

"Wanted to pay a visit, eh? I don't blame you. But thank you so much for helping her with the plane—and coming with her, too! I was worried sick when she flew over there by herself, you know…"

And on she went, babbling in this manner again. Christine and Gerry patiently endured it for a good ten minutes before the woman finally decided they should get out of the airport. Then Gerry realized something.

"Yeah, I haven't gotten a car or a place to stay, I should probably sort that out…"

Christine looked at him pleadingly, glancing at Mama Rossum with dread. He quickly added, "You know what, I'll do that later. Er…lunch is on me. How about it?"

Mrs. Rossum couldn't have been more pleased.

/

"Answer me!"

"Tell me what YOU want and I'll answer!"

"I asked first!"

"My answer depends on yours!"

"As does mine!"

Nadir had left, but he could hear Emmy and Erik's childish bickering all the way out in the audience seats where he had retreated—for he knew this was the perfect spot to listen to everything, due to the amplitude of the cavernous room.

"Just decide what you want, already!"

Madame Giry silently entered the auditorium, furrowing her brows as she heard Erik's voice reverberate off the walls, even though he was using a normal, though frustrated, speaking voice.  
"I have!"

"Then tell me!"

Antoinette found Nadir and gave him a look that asked for an explanation. He just gave a small, mysterious smile and said, "Ah, young love."

"Fine!" Erik snapped, finally accepting his defeat and beginning his explanation exasperatedly. "I've loved Christine for years upon years and I would do anything for her, but I can not even relate to her, except through music alone. You have the same mesmerizing voice and beauty, yet you also evoke thoughts I never would have even considered by way of deep conversation. But we have easy talks as well. I've never been able to speak to anyone in such an amiable manner, aside from my only friend, Nadir, and even that is a very rare occasion. Not even Christine and I have had that simple pleasure. It was either voice lessons or situations in which I was frightening her with my words. I am driven to protect her, as with you, but she can never appreciate it or return it. Even when she is not consciously afraid of me, there will always be an underlying intimidation for her. You, however, don't appear to see me as a threat whatsoever. And there are things in your world I could never have imagined—everything from how your society works to the inventions to how I am treated. The past few weeks have been the greatest happiness I have ever known. I love you both, I always will, but I want to be with you, in your world. That is the only way I can ever be truly happy and be of any worth to someone."

Outside, Madame Giry had gone pale and Nadir's jade eyes were wide. They glanced at each other as if silently asking if they had heard the same thing or if they had gone mad. But they heard nothing else. At first, they smiled mischievously a little, assuming that the two were, at present, madly embracing and kissing one another, but after a few minutes, Nadir became worried and returned to the backstage area.

No one was there.

/

Mrs. Rossum had been babbling on about something or another for about twenty minutes as she drove Gerry and Christine through New York, trying to find a decent place for lunch. They both were in the backseat, patiently enduring her talking, until she parked.

"I hope you like this place, it's really—" she started to say as she turned around, then gasped. She shook her head and blinked rapidly, not sure she had seen what she thought. It was nothing horrifying or threatening enough to induce an immediate scream, but her scream followed soon enough.

Once again, no one was there.

/

Gerry, Christine, Emmy, and Erik simultaneously found themselves in a white abyss. The doubles (Erik and Gerry, Emmy and Christine) only had a moment to look at eachother in shock before the endless, blindingly white and empty space shook, as if it were a stalled elevator, then they all screamed as everything went black and they dropped. This stomach wrenching, deadly feeling of falling from an astronomical height only lasted another split second. Then they all had the sensation on being on a totally awesome acid trip.

Well, actually, it was more like their souls were being split apart then smashed together again, mingling and separating like someone trying to combine oil and water. Streams of color flashed, muffled voices that sounded as if they were underwater screamed, and the only thought that could come to anyone's mind was the panicked idea that maybe this was death. All four screwed their eyes shut then felt as if they were plunged in icy water, unable to breathe. Opening their eyes and looking up towards a glimmering surface, they found that this was exactly the case, and desperately clawed through the water towards the air.

Emmy reached the surface first with a desperate, choking gasp, then sputtered as she expelled the water from her lungs. The other three did the same a moment later. After they rid themselves of their immediate danger, they looked around in confused horror.

They appeared to be in an underground lake, much like Erik's, yet not the same. The dome of the cavern was lower and as they looked to shore, there was a small but beautifully built house standing there.

Desperate to get out of the freezing water, all four misplaced souls swam then trudged through the water to the shore, holding themselves and shivering.

"I d-don't s-suppose…any of y-you know wh-wha-what the hell just…h-happened..?" Erik struggled to say through chattering teeth. All of the others shook their heads. For a long moment, they just stared at their doubles, shivering. Finally, Christine couldn't take the cold anymore and clung to Gerry, trying to obtain some body heat. Erik couldn't bother to ask himself if he should be jealous, as Emmy soon did the same to him.

"Ah, you've arrived!" a nasally but welcoming voice greeted them. They whipped around to see a middle aged man smiling at them. Nothing would have been disturbing about him aside from the fact that he was wearing a half mask. Erik stared in horror, recognizing him from his marathon of watching every version of his story ever made.

"You're Michael Crawford!"

The other man sighed. "Yes, I'm his version, but I do exist in my own world, you know. Just like you and Gerry aren't the same person."

All four of our soaked protagonists stared at him with their jaws dropped. They stayed this way until a moment later, when only their eyes moved behind the man, where ANOTHER masked man was standing. This one had a full black face mask, was painfully thin, and was twitching in a slightly disturbing way, giggling to himself.

"Erik is so pleased to see you are here! Do come inside, visitors, Erik doesn't want you to freeze!"

Erik (the soaking wet one) took longer than the others to rush towards the house, as he was trying to figure out in his disturbed mind which version of himself this was. The skeletal Erik crossed his arms and stared at him from behind the mask with gold eyes.

"Well, brother Erik, are you coming or not?"

"Y-yes…" said the other, struggling to walk into the house without stumbling, as he was shaking so much. Once inside, more Eriks, with various masks and heights and bodies all greeted him (some less friendly than others) and the one he recognized as the Charles Dance version gave him a warm blanket. Gerry, Emmy, and Christine already had wrapped themselves up in blankets themselves, huddling next to a small fireplace in an elegant little room.

"This is Leroux Erik's home—the original, you know, in case you're uneducated," said an Erik who bore a resemblance to the one he mentioned, but spoke much more condescendingly. Our Erik only guessed that this was the Susan Kay version.

"I-I know..who…you…all are…well, most of y-you…anyway…" he said, glancing at all the other Eriks with a mixture of fear and fascination.

Christine, being less cold and no longer chattering, asked clearly, "Will someone please tell us what's going on? How did we get here? Who meddled with our lives? Why?"

"Oh, you women are so inquisitive…" muttered Leroux Erik. Charles Dance Erik shot him a disapproving look. Kay Erik just rolled his mismatched eyes, obviously annoyed by being in the presence of those less intelligent than he.

"Leroux Erik did it," said a hissing, malicious sounding voice as an unmasked Erik with uneven, stitched together flesh on his face stepped forward. It was Robert Englund Erik Destler. Leroux Erik cackled giddily.

"Yes, Erik did it, for he is so very clever, and he gets very bored, you see! He went out in Paris at night and stole a crystal ball from gypsies! He did it because they beat him as a child, you know, and it was a small way to get back at them, and also, the crystal ball looked like a marvelous gift for his little Christine! It's very pretty, and she would like that…but Erik found that the ball showed him strange things, other men like himself! He watched their lives through that ball for seven days and nights on end, not eating or sleeping, just staring into that wonderful oracular ball, until he found that if he asked it questions, the ball would show him the answer! So Erik found out that the reason there were so many other Eriks is because men had made his life into a story, that they copied over and over in different forms through theatre and books and strange things called films! So Erik started watching the lives of the ACTORS. At seeing how fortunate the actors were, he felt pity for himself and wondered what would happen if he gave one Erik the chance to BE his actor! Erik would do it for himself, but he doesn't have an actor, you see, so it was quite impossible. But he tried it with the most fortunate actor, the best looking, the most popular, and _swapped their lives for his amusement._ But also, for the sake of his youngest brother Erik! Oh, he was so happy when he saw how it was working out with Madamoiselle Rossum and brother Erik…but he was curious about the other Eriks, so all he did was wish them in his house, and _they appeared!_ And here they are!"

"Leroux Erik is very prone to monologues, as you can see," droned a sarcastic man with an ill-fitting, shiny mask.

"We've been watching your lives much like people in Gerry and Emmy's time watch television…except we watch almost nonstop," an Erik with an equally absurd, full face mask with a flap over his mouth—Lon Chaney Erik.

"That's not creepy at all," muttered Gerry. He received many, many death glares.

"So what was the point of all of this again?" asked Emmy, who was looked upon much more nicely by the other Eriks—a bit too nicely, in fact.

"You can't say you regret this situation, can you, my dear?" asked one of the ALW stage phantoms.

"Well…er…not really, but—"

"The point was it had no point. Much like life," Kay Erik mused gravely. The other men chimed in eagerly.

"But it had a wonderous outcome, did it not?"

"At least one of us has a happy ending!"

"Hey, why don't we try this with all of us?"

"Because half of your actors are dead, imbecile."

"Time is nothing with this ball, remember!"

"True…but—"

"It's not fair to us book characters, we don't have anyone to swap lives with!"

"Can't you go back in time and change your actions?"

"Erik already tried that for himself. He swears to you, it is impossible."

"Damn it! Damn it all to hell!"

"Kerik, you can do things aside from curse, you know."

This resulted in a confusing squabble among all those masked except for the one we know as Gerik.


	31. The LSD Trip

**AN: Sorry for the confusion, but I really don't know how to explain the last chapter other than how I wrote it. I hope you liked the outcome of the identity of the voices anyway, and I hope you'll enjoy this chapter as well. Thanks for reviewing!**

**CHAPTER 31**

"Wait, so how did Miranda know about this?" Gerry asked. A maskless man with an extraordinarily disgusting wig stepped forward with a creepy grin.

"Oh, that. See, what happened was—"

"Shut up, Deriko, you shouldn't even be here," snapped the Ken Hill phantom.

"No one cares about you either…" muttered Deriko.

"Only because Webber ripped me off!"

"Hey! Andrew is a genius!" whined Tim Martin Gleason Erik.

"Er…have you SEEN the sequel?"

Lerik clutched his heart and hissed, "_DON'T EVEN SPEAK OF THAT MONSTROSITY_!"

"We were speaking of it in a negative light, calm down."

"Erik does not wish to hear about it at all."

"We should invite the Love Never Dies phantom here," said the Phantom of the Paradise in his Darth Vader-esque voice. Lerik's golden eyes seemed to ignite with rage.

"We shall NOT!"

Once again, the phantoms proceeded to have a quiet squabble. A random Siamese cat appeared and jumped in Kay Erik's arms, just before he was going to attempt to explain. He instantly started cooing at the creature adoringly and forgot about everything else going on. So another masked man came forth—this one being the Claude Raines version.

"You were asking about Miranda, weren't you? See, We needed someone to speed up the process, but we couldn't very well just pop up in your dimension ourselves. So we contacted Miranda to do it for us," he said.

"And she was…okay with this?" Emmy asked with a raised brow.

"You'd be surprised by her extracurricular activities," snickered the pompous David Staller phantom.

No one pushed further with this subject.

"Why are we here now, though?" Christine inquired timidly. At present, she was leaning on Gerry again.

"Because of brother Erik's confession, of course!" cackled Lerik.

"Confession?" Gerry and Christine asked simultaneously as Emmy's eyes widened and Gerik cringed, not wanting more attention directed towards himself.

"It was quite romantic," sighed Charles Dance Erik wistfully.

All eyes were on Gerik immediately.

"What confession?" Gerry finally asked his masked twin, who stared back at him blankly.

"None of your business."

"It is our business!" Christine cried. Gerik's eyes flitted back to hers, then looked around the room again, exceedingly uncomfortable with all this pressure. He stayed silent.

Kay Erik, remembering there were others in the room aside from Ayesha, sighed and decided to take the spotlight, looking at Christine as he continued to pet his precious feline. "He revealed that he loves both Emmy and yourself but knows that he will find himself happier and do more good if he is allowed to be with Emmy, as she does not fear or despise him, and in Gerry's body, he will be treated as an ordinary man…well, an extraordinary man, in this case."

Mixed feelings concerning this weren't limited to Gerik, Christine, Emmy, and Gerry. The other Eriks seemed to have varied opinions about this as well—which they voiced immediately, of course.

"I could never stop loving Christine, even if it was a woman with the same voice and body who was playing her role…"

"Please, you can't honestly say you would deny a clone of Christine who actually wanted you."

"Who said anything about me wanting him?" Emmy snapped defensively. All Erik eyes flashed towards hers, then at poor Gerik, who was gaping at her in hurt shock.

"W-What?"

She shook her head and quickly tried to explain herself but ended up confusing everyone else even more, as she was mumbling something along the lines of, "No, it's not that I don't want you, I just erm, was asking how do they know that I…I mean…I don't even know…"

"Huh?"

"Wha..?"

Inwardly cursing herself for being so ridiculously awkward, Emmy flushed with embarrassment and looked away.

Gerry sighed impatiently and urged her on, "Go on, tell us! Do you want to be with the guy or not?"

"I…" she swallowed, glancing at all of the eyes, trying to decipher who all would hate her if she told the truth. Christine—who was hard to look at in the eye anyway, since it was like looking at a possessed reflection in a mirror—looked sad yet hopeful at the same time, Gerry seemed mostly just curious to know, and pretty much all of the Eriks seemed to be silently pleading that she would say yes. Erik himself—'her' Erik, that is—was the most hopeful of all. Looking at him with a faint smile, she nodded.

There was a collective joyous sigh. But before anyone could even have it sink in that Erik actually had someone to love him, someone blurted out, "But what about Christine and the actor?"

"Yes, Christine, is he better than the Vicomte?" asked Kerik daringly, crossing his arms. Ayesha, now slinking around his feet, even seemed to shoot Christine a contemptuous look.

"I sure hope she thinks so. If she can't love our brother Erik, a man who sympathizes with our character is still better than that mere boy," mentioned the Michael Crawford phantom to Robert Englund Erik, or Rerik, who snorted.

"He doesn't know how to even function in our society!"

"Neither do we," pointed out Charles Dance Erik.

"We understand it, Derik, we just can't _live_ in normal society," said Merik calmly.

"I'm sure Lerik would beg to differ," Rerik snickered. Lucky for him, the original Opera Ghost failed to hear him.

"I find Monsieur Butler to be much more similar to Chagny than to any of us," said a man in a dirty mask who had not spoken before—Professor Petrie from the Herbert Lom movie.

"How?" Gerry demanded at hearing his name. Petrie cleared his throat and turned to him.

"No offense, sir, but you are rather gifted financially and with physical attractiveness."

"…How could I take offense to that?"

"Because it makes you like HIM!" hissed Kerik, slapping his masked forehead in annoyance. Gerry shrugged.

"Maybe. But I didn't have wealth handed to me. If I felt like I identified more with Raoul, I wouldn't have tried out for the role of the Phantom."

The other Eriks decided Gerry had an excellent point and said no more on that particular subject.

"But how do you feel about _her?_" asked Derik, glancing at Christine, who then looked up at Gerry with the most irresistibly innocent expression.

He just paused to look everyone in the eye, making sure he had their attention, before saying, "You know, I think this speaks for itself", grabbing Christine, and planting a bold kiss on her lips.

Everyone gasped—some in simple shock, some in joy, some in distain. Emmy lightheartedly laughed. Rerik gave a sarcastic applause. Gerik just gaped, unsure how to feel about this. And some Erik towards the back fainted.

Breaking the kiss and glancing at everyone with a smug grin (including Christine, who was blushing furiously), Gerry said, "Hope that clears everything up."


	32. How It All Ends

**AN: So…don't kill me. I have a legit reason for not updating. One act play, deadline, stress. Fun! And a bit of writer's block.**

After everyone had finished either cooing or gagging over the Gerry-Christine kiss, Emmy raised her hand.

"Now I have a question—how is this going to work?"

Christine raised a brow. "What do you mean?"

"Well, no matter which one of us chooses to live in the modern world, in mine and Gerry's bodies, the age difference is not going to go over well with other 21st century people," she explained.

"What age difference?" cried many uninformed Eriks.

Emmy had to take a minute to explain this concept to them before they finally started pondering the likelihood of this.

"Well…technically, it's not illegal," said Gerry.

"Only barely," Emmy reminded him. He shrugged.

"Maybe we can keep it a secret for a while. Either way, shouldn't we be deciding who goes to which world?"

The four doppelgangers went silent, thinking—except for Gerik, who immediately voiced his desire to live in an unmarred body.

"Well, who the hell would want to be an Erik?" Kerik muttered drily.

"Actually, I wouldn't mind it."

Everyone stared at the handsome actor, who shrugged. "It's not really that bad. Yeah, I would prefer my own face but it could be worse. I mean, look at you guys."

The Eriks were offended on the spot but said nothing, as they all could accept that statement as a simple fact. Gerry continued.

"I'd have a really nice place, lots of privacy, a huge salary, and get to do something lots of people would kill to do—live in another time period. And yeah, living there with a beautiful woman is good too."

"Wonderful, it's settled then. When do we leave?" asked Gerik hurriedly.

"Wait, wait, we haven't allowed the ladies to have a say…" Derik pointed out, being a sappy gentleman as always.

Emmy and Christine looked at eachother, as if the other had the answer. They started speaking, more to themselves, and due to their identical voices, it was hard to tell which one was saying what.

"I don't know…"

"I don't want to leave so soon…"

"There's so much I haven't seen in your world yet.."

"And what about the people we all care about? Either way, someone has to say goodbye to the people they know and love."

"And we'll never see one another again, either!"

Lerik jumped to his feet. "Erik has a solution for that! It involves two little dears made of brass…"

"Oh good God, he's raving about those bloody things again…"

"The grasshopper hops JOLLY HIGH!" Lerik shrieked, then giggled maniacally, pulling a little box out of his pocket and opening it, revealing the brass insects. "He will give one to brother Erik and the Emmy clone, and the other to Gerry and Christine!"  
"Great…how does that solve our problem?" Emmy sighed, annoyed by being called a clone again. Lerik rolled his golden eyes.

"Because, Mam'selle Rossum, they are _enchanted_…"

Some Erik in the back snorted. "He's mad."

"How mad can he be, considering body swapping and alternate dimensions and a whole load of other crap we can't explain?" Gerry said, then turned to Lerik. "Go on."

"Clever Erik will simply wish them to be a transportation device, and THIS will have it be done!" Lerik said excitedly, lifting up the crystal ball before clutching it and the little box close to him and staring intently into the ball. Everyone had a slight, creeping fear for their lives as he focused. After a moment, his head snapped back up.

"It is done!"

No one bothered to ask how he knew that, as he was certain to just boast about his intuitive powers or some other rubbish. Lerik merrily approached the two almost identical couples, moving strangely like the skeleton he was, and held out the box.

"You must choose!"

"Is there a difference between the two?" Christine asked hesitantly.

"They both have the power to transport you, yourself, through space and time! No more body swapping! Isn't that nice? Erik is considerate, you see…"

"How do you transport yourself?" Gerik asked impatiently.

"Why, you simply hold onto the little creature and invision the place you wish to go."

"Can we go anywhere we want to?" asked Emmy, excited.

"No. You may only come back here, or to the location of your doppelganger. But beware, you might cause quite a global stir if you appear out of thin air next to Christine if she is not alone!"

"Which is why we can come to you to see where everyone is," Gerik assumed. Lerik nodded his masked head eagerly.

"Correct, brother Erik!"

"And if we both need to go to the other world, we both hold onto the grasshopper or the scorpion?" Christine timidly inquired.

"Yes!"

"What if I brought someone aside from Erik?" Emmy asked. Lerik stared at her gravely.

"Terrible things would happen!"

"Like what?"

Gerry answered for her this time. "Like your friend going and telling everyone that dimension travel is possible and you both getting thrown in an asylum or the bloody government or something getting involved or something else. Don't you watch movies? Telling outsiders about crazy stuff like this never works out well."

Emmy looked at the floor, now slightly red. "Oh. Right."

Christine hesitantly picked up the scorpion and everyone slightly gasped. Nothing exploded, so Emmy took the grasshopper.

Lerik rubbed his skeletal hands together. "They are ready!"

"Wait, what about my—"

Emmy's protest was lost in that same, underwater screaming sound where time and space warped together in a colorful, confused blur as the four fell through and separated in dimensions. All of a sudden, Emmy and Erik breathlessly found themselves in the backseat of a car, which was being driven by a very chatty Mrs. Rossum. It took them a moment to realize this must have been where Gerry and Christine were before they all arrived in Lerik's lair. However, which country they were in, they didn't know.

At the same time, Gerry and Christine opened their eyes to find themselves in the backstage of the opera. Nadir and Madame Giry soon appeared around the corner, looking very confused.

"What happened?"

In this case, since the Persian and the ballet instructor knew all about the bodyswapping, the couple could spill the entire insane story. Unfortunately, Emmy and Erik could not do the same, and just had to ask a few seemingly stupid questions to Mrs. Rossum before they realized where exactly they were and what was going on.

As far as the opera house, Andre and Firmin finally abandoned it, believing it there was no hope for it, as well as having quite enough of things exploding. Another manager ended up taking over—Nadir Khan. As a much more intelligent manager, Gerry only continued the Opera Ghost façade for the public as well as his own amusement. 'Haunted' opera houses get much more publicity.

Christine continued on as Prima Donna while still keeping her personal life rather secret (aside from an exaggerated article in the _Epoque_ about her separation with the Vicomte, who continued to visit the opera as a dear friend.) However, those ballet girls, stagehands, and other opera residents who had seen _Don Juan _had a fairly good idea of the truth behind the singer and the 'ghost'.

Erik and Emmy managed to pass off their relationship as simply a friendship/business relationship like she and Gerry had, even as the movie came out in December and their amount of publicity exploded. Any rumors of romance were quickly passed off as phangirl's wishful thinking. Emmy's mother thought the same thing for a while, since she had put Gerard on such a high pedestal, until the couple stopped bothering to sugarcoat why they spent so much time together. Erik encouraged Emmy to continue a singing career, naturally, and he grew rather fond of acting.

Every so often, both couples did visit Lerik and then the opposite world because they had become homesick (or rather, Emmy wanted to see the Victorian time period again, or Christine had a question about modern technology, or Erik wanted to know how his opera was running, or Gerry just missed his mum.) The first few times Erik appeared next to Gerry, or Christine popped up next to Emmy, or vice versa, screams and flying lampshades ensued, but after a while they became used to finding their doppelganger in their bedroom in the middle of the night.

So all in all, it was happily ever after.

Well, at least until Deriko got his hands on the crystal ball.


End file.
